


double je

by darkavenue



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), F/M, i wrote this really early on in fandom so its filled with marichat tropes IM SORRY, minor OC villains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-01
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-24 02:29:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6138261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkavenue/pseuds/darkavenue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I think you have a type,” she said. It was her.</p><p>“I’m weak,” he agreed faintly.</p><p>She always dismissed his feelings toward Ladybug as idolization, or a heat of the moment rush. She didn’t expect him to feel exactly the same about Marinette, the human disaster who worked at a bakery and spilled wine over herself at parties.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Lucky Charm had failed.

Well, not completely, as the massive creature lunging toward her was significantly slowed down by cords of miraculous jump rope she had materialized and spun around his hulkish limbs. This was not enough to wear down the monster, which called itself Powerjock. His physical strength was far more than Ladybug and Chat Noir’s combined.

Chat slinked desperately between the bulging, veiny claws of the beast grabbing for him. “What do we do now?”

He barely managed to slip through without becoming tangled in the ropes hindering their opponent. Ladybug’s eyes searched for an answer around the basketball court, over the bleachers on either side, across the front wall lined with sports equipment. Nothing popped out. It was hard to concentrate with the noisy alarm ringing right into her ear. Tikki’s power was running out fast.

“Keep him busy, I’ll be right back!”

She watched Chat’s eyes widen in panic, but he said nothing. He saw her use up her Lucky Charm, and what that meant was understood. Ladybug barreled through the exit doors, hardly keeping herself together long enough to make it out of the gym. Her transformation unraveled before she had managed to fully shut the doors behind her, but there was no time to worry about what Chat Noir may have seen.

Panting, Marinette dashed down familiar halls, thankful that this chaos had broken out after school hours. Any lingering staff must have run away when they heard the commotion from the gym. She skidded to a stop at her locker, where she always kept a small stash of snacks in case of emergency.

“How are you doing, Tikki?” she asked, ripping open a bag of oreos.

A small moan came in response from her purse. Marinette unceremoniously dumped the cookies into it. Several bounced off the edges and crumbled to the floor, but she didn’t care.

“Eat up while I help Chat back there,” she told Tikki.

“But Powerjock is too strong! You can’t do anything like this.”

“Rude! Even if I’m only an extra distraction for the Hulk, that’s better than nothing.”

She zipped her bag shut, muffling any further complaints Tikki had.

When she reached the gym, Marinette peeked through the windows in the doors to begin forming a strategy. When she wasn’t Ladybug, rushing into danger without a plan was not an option. She had to be careful not to hurt herself before Tikki could transform again. Through the glass she could see Chat Noir perched atop a basketball hoop, taunting Powerjock from where he couldn't reach. It was killing time nicely.

Until Powerjock gave the basketball post a frustrated punch, and the metal split with a resonating crack. The superhuman punched it again and the ball post came crashing down with Chat Noir atop it. Marinette took her chance to slip in unnoticed amongst the calamity.

Chat Noir landed on his feet and backed away from the muscle-monster advancing toward him. Marinette could see that it would end with Chat in a corner. She picked up a basketball and flung it towards the creature’s back with all her strength. It was a pretty pathetic throw compared to what she could accomplish as Ladybug, but it hit the target anyway.

Powerjock froze in his tracks for one tense moment of silence, before whirling around with a deafening roar. Marinette trembled against her will.

“Tikki?” she mumbled.

“I neeb more nime!” Tikki answered through a mouthful of oreos.

“Don’t you gang up on me,” Powerjock growled, stomping toward Marinette with eyes full of rage.

“Or what!” she shouted with more nerve than she was actually feeling, and pelted another ball at him.

He swatted it away as if it were a fly, completely destroying the basketball in the process. “Or I’ll crush you like they crushed me!”

Marinette didn’t try her luck again. She bolted toward the bleachers lining the nearest wall and dove in between the seats, crawling into the space underneath where the enormous enemy wouldn’t fit. Her knees and elbows crashed against twenty different pieces of metal on the way, and when she made it to the floor she was hissing in pain. She had never been this deep into combat while in civilian mode, so her human limits were surprisingly new to her.

“Who’s running away now?” Powerjock roared.

Marinette could see his neck muscles bulging from anger through the horizontal spaces in between seats. It was only a matter of time before he began to tear them up to get to her, as he had done with the basketball post. Marinette could run to the opposite end of the bleachers and slip out undetected while he kept himself busy doing that. She spun around to do just that, but immediately crashed face-first into something in the dark.

“What are you doing here?” Chat Noir grabbed her by the shoulders before she could topple backwards from the force of the collision into his chest.

“I was just—I came to—” Marinette stumbled over an excuse, but it was drowned out by the sound of metal tearing apart.

With a hand around her bicep, Chat Noir pulled her into a run to the other end of the bleachers, where she had been planning to go anyway.

“Don’t be scared, I’ll get you out of here,” he panted. He was wearing down.

“Can’t you see that he is afraid of being bullied?”

“I don’t think he’s scared of us.”

“No, I mean that’s his weakness that the akuma is taking advantage of."

Chat Noir had stopped in his tracks to listen to her, still holding her arm protectively. It was dark underneath the bleachers, but his eyes were lit across by a straight line of light shining through the slats.

“I’m his friend,” Marinette lied. “I have a feeling in my heart that he became a monster from being picked on.”

“I promise your friend will come out of this alright, but you need to get out of here,” Chat said. “I’ll distract him and you run for the door.”

Chat Noir attempted to pull her along, but Marinette stubbornly planted her feet. “No, you need to bully me.”

His brows scrunched together. “No? I don’t?”

“You have to, he will trust you. He wants to gang up—”

The sound of screeching metal drowned her out as the bleachers overhead were torn away, revealing Powerjock looming over them. Marinette felt something tug her thumb, and glanced down to her hip. It was Tikki, barely peeking out from her purse, giving her a desperate thumbs up.

Marinette backed away from Chat Noir, glaring at him. “Stop calling me weak and pathetic! I’m not!”

Chat simply stared at her with his mouth slightly open.

“I don’t _understand_ why you called me _such_ cruel names!” she shouted louder, side-eyeing Powerjock. It was looking on with interest.

“It’s because… you are! A complete loser!” Chat Noir finally followed her lead, giving her a soft push at the shoulder with one gloved hand.

It didn’t hurt at all, but Marinette made a show of crying out and collapsing to the ground.

“Let’s beat her up,” Powerjock chimed in, smashing a fist against his open palm.

“Yeah,” Chat played along. “Let’s... pelt her with basketballs?”

“YEAH,” Powerjock agreed enthusiastically, advancing on Marinette. "See how she likes it."

Chat Noir deftly stepped in his way.

“Since you’re so slow, we’ll give you a head start so it’s an actual sport,” he said to Marinette before turning to their enemy. “Right?”

Powerjock nodded with a cruel smirk. Marinette did not waste a second scrambling to her feet and dashing out of there.

She had barely turned the corner when she was already saying, “Spots on!”

She heard the gym doors burst open just as her transformation completed.

“Looking for someone?” Ladybug said as she rounded the corner, expecting to see Powerjock and Chat Noir on the hunt for their victim.

Instead, it was only Chat Noir running toward her with their opponent not far behind.

“He let his guard down and I grabbed his akuma!” he triumphantly explained.

Chat Noir flung it at her and it wasn’t long before the akuma was purified and the tower of muscles that had once been a student began shrinking down to his original self. It was a flabby guy with thick, curly hair, and braces over his teeth. Certainly not an athletic appearance at all, and Ladybug felt a pang of sympathy for what male versions of Chloe must have put him through.

“I’m sorry,” he whimpered. “I was just so angry…”

“Don’t beat yourself up about it,” Chat Noir said.

“Chat!” Ladybug gave him a glare that said this wasn’t the time for jokes.

“Honestly,” he continued. “We know that wasn’t the real you.”

It seemed to calm him down, and the two heroes were able to help the guy get into a cab home.

“Well done,” Ladybug and Chat Noir simultaneously congratulated each other, bumping fists as the cab drove away.

Now that the events of the night had blown over, a certain anxiety was creeping in. Chat Noir wasn’t saying anything about Marinette, which made her suspicious he had seen something he shouldn’t have. She cut it close to being caught a few times tonight.

“So…” she started, not sure how to bring it up.

Chat grinned, looking pleasantly surprised that she decided to stick around after their work was done. “You must be exhausted from transforming twice, my lady.”

That’s a good way to bring it up.

“You must be twice as exhausted from distracting Powerjock without me,” she answered, testing the waters.

“It was nothing! As you can see, I didn’t even need you to snatch the akuma from him. Aren’t you impressed? I could be a successful solo superhero, but I choose to be with you.”

Ladybug’s jaw hung open. He couldn’t possibly be taking all the credit.

“You are impressed! I wish you always looked so stunned by me.”

“You’re saying you did that all on your own?” she asked slowly.

Chat hesitated in answering. “Who else would’ve been there?”

He looked at her with a soft smile that was absolutely unreadable. Was he teasing her because he knew she was the girl in the gym, daring her to say she knew what really happened? Or was he being an absolute cock as usual?

“Well, Chat Noir. I’m shocked. Goodnight.”

Not wanting to delve further into this in case she accidentally revealed how much she knew, Ladybug cast out her yoyo and swung out of his sight before Chat Noir could pester her further.


	2. Chapter 2

Ladybug was cautious around Chat Noir the next few times they crossed paths. She worried that he was playing some coy game by hiding what he knew about Marinette from her. However, the more time passed without him bringing up Marinette, the more she felt it was only paranoia. No persistent admirers popped out of nowhere for Marinette either, and she felt sure that Chat Noir’s alter-ego would not be able to control himself from bugging her if he knew where she went to school.

Paris had been relatively quiet for a couple of weeks until Les 4 Temps shopping center announced a meet and greet event with Adrien Agreste, something promotional for one of the clothing lines he modeled.

Marinette called up Alya when she was approaching the entrance to the mall.

“Hey, girl.”

“Where are you, Alya?”

“I’m a block away, almost there.”

Marinette paused at the doorway, figuring she might as well wait for her friend there if she was so close. “Walk faster, we’re already so late!”

“I don’t know why you want to wait in line to see Adrien when you can see him at school.”

Marinette spotted Alya’s familiar figure approaching from the sidewalk across from her, and continued talking into the cellphone anyway. “He's been missing class for weeks because of his schedule. I’ve almost forgotten what he looks like.”

She sighed theatrically and Alya laughed into the phone. Marinette pressed against the glass doors to peek at the size of the line to see Adrien.

“I don’t think you could forget that face considering—Oh. What the…”

“What happened?” Marinette spun around to check on Alya, who should’ve been crossing the street to her just now.

But Alya was a block away. Farther than she had been when Marinette noticed her coming.

“This is weird. I guess I zoned out. Anyway, I’m almost there!” Alya said.

Marinette was too stunned to reply. She watched Alya approach the end of the block again. This time they made eye contact across the street, still holding cell phones to their ears. As soon as Alya stepped into the crosswalk… She was at the far end of the block again.

“Marinette? Am I going crazy?” Alya asked shakily into the phone.

“No, Alya, I saw it,” she assured her. “There must be trouble… You should try to go home.”

“What about you?”

“Well, obviously, I’m going too. Call me to let me know you got there safe.”

“Yeah, okay, same for you.”

Marinette hung up and waved at Alya in the distance. She watched her turn to walk home, and then pushed through the revolving doors to the mall. It was chaos. People were screaming, posters of Adrien were flying, and one teenage girl floated above them all.

“YOU. You’re here!” she screamed at someone kneeling on the floor.

Marinette needed to transform, but there were people running in all directions. And yet none were shoving her despite her being frozen right at the doors. Seemingly, no one could manage to find the way out.

“You gave me the wrong directions on purpose when I asked you how to get to Adrien’s meet and greet! How could you be so mean?” the wicked teenager continued to scream at the person she had cornered.

Marinette ran toward the nearest store, planning to push into a fitting room to change. But when she thought she had reached the store, she found herself somewhere else completely. She glanced around, disoriented. 

“It’s all your fault! You are the reason I became Miss Direction, and the reason no one will ever find their way again!”

From this location, Marinette could see who the furious fangirl was flipping out on. It was Chloe. Huge surprise.

Marinette tried again to duck into a nearby store, but she ended up across the room, nowhere near it. “What the hell!”

There was a maternity store to the right of her. It was so close. If she could get in there without losing her way…

Marinette flattened herself against its glass display. If she edged along this way, she shouldn’t get disoriented. She took a few steps toward the entrance with her back pressed against the glass, feeling more optimistic the closer she got to it.

She reached the entrance! With a wide grin, Marinette got ready to run for the dressing rooms. Mid-step, someone snatched her wrist.

“Marinette! Are you pregnant?”

With a frustrated groan, she turned to face Chat Noir. “How did you manage to find…” she cut herself off before finishing that thought (— _somewhere to transform?_ ).

“You?” he concluded. “Well, I was looking for Miss Direction, and I couldn’t help noticing you being lost.”

“I wasn’t lost!”

Chat Noir released Marinette’s wrist. “Oh? Go ahead then.”

Marinette hadn’t been paying attention to anything outside of trying to edge her way into that maternity store, and now Miss Direction was nowhere to be found. On top of that, she couldn’t possibly use this store to change now that Chat Noir would see her go in and Ladybug come out. 

“Fine, I was lost. Where did she go?”

“She dragged Chloe to the upper levels. Would you like me to get you out of here? I haven’t forgotten I owe you one for the help a while back.”

“No, I don’t. Go find them, I’ll be fine.”

The slick vinyl of his palm slid against her hand, taking hold of it.

“I think you’re a thrill-seeker, Marinette. That’s why you want to stay here and why you were at the gym that night. You wanna play sidekick again?”

“Me, the sidekick?” Marinette scoffed, narrowing her eyes.

He let go of her hand to hold up gloved claws defensively, dropping his flirty act for a moment. “I didn’t mean it condescendingly. You’ve been good help in tight spots even though you don’t have a Miraculous.”

Marinette had the bitter urge to say something about him not mentioning her _good help_ to Ladybug, but stifled it in time before she said something she wasn't supposed to know. If she let Chat Noir take her to the upper floors, where there wouldn’t be crowds of people, she could easily slip away to transform while Chat kept himself busy with Miss Direction.

“Okay, Chat Noir. Let’s try to get through this invisible maze.”

He offered his hand to her. “So we don’t get separated," he explained.

Marinette hesitantly took it, anticipating that he would kiss it. He sank to one knee and kissed it. She fucking knew this boy.

Together they meandered through the mall, bumping nonstop into panicked bystanders, trying to find some sense or pattern to the twisting misdirections. Alya called her a few minutes in. Marinette answered instantly, filled with dread that her friend was in trouble.

“Alya?”

“Letting you know I’m home, babe. Are you almost there?”

Marinette chewed her lip. With the commotion from all the lost people around, she couldn’t hide that she was nowhere near home. “Ah, no. I actually stayed at the mall.”

“What? You’re crazy! Adrien’s not worth it.”

“It’s fine, I’m with Chat Noir. Couldn’t be safer, don’t worry about me.”

“Oh, sure, you’re with Chat Noir. What a load of—”

Marinette pulled the phone away from her ear and held it out to Chat. “Could you please talk to my best friend for me?”

His mouth twisted into a puzzled expression, but he took the phone anyway. “Hello, who is this? … This is Chat Noir. … Yes, really, I found her wandering into a maternity store. … I would never! … I will... Yes... I said I will! ... Okay, trust me, hahaha… Bye bye, Alya.”

Still laughing, Chat Noir returned her cell phone.

“What did she say that’s so funny?” Marinette asked.

“Oh, nothing,” Chat teased.

"Come on." Marinette knocked her shoulder against his side, but he only laughed to himself.

The playfulness between them died off fairly soon. After their ninth time circling the same patch of shrubs, both of them were silently fuming with frustration.

“Let’s go that way and see if we end up any closer to the stairs,” Chat suggested, raising their locked hands to point at a watch store.

“We’ve already been that way twice,” Marinette grumbled bitterly.

“Does it matter?” he snapped in a tone that made a surge of anger swell up in her chest.

Marinette pulled him in a different direction out of spite. They walked in tense silence for a couple of minutes before Chat Noir broke it with an apology.

“I didn’t mean to talk to you like that. I’m annoyed at how lost we are, not at you.”

“I know,” was all Marinette could force herself to say. Because she still felt annoyed at him and, also, the maze.

“And I’m worried about Ladybug, because I haven’t seen her,” he continued. “If she’s not here, it must be that something terrible happened and I’m circling the mall, not able to help. If she is here, it must mean that she is upstairs tackling Miss Direction on her own while I am still lost and useless on the first level and all the people here are getting a great look at so-called hero Chat Noir being as dumbfounded as they are. Ladybug would be embarrassed of me…”

Marinette listened with downcast eyes, overcome with the uncomfortable feeling that she was eavesdropping on something private by listening to him vent. She hadn’t thought about it, but she did suddenly feel grateful that all these people had no idea who she was. Being lost as Ladybug would be pretty shameful… Unsure of what to do, she squeezed his hand.

“Just needed to get those thoughts out so I could have more room to think without them,” Chat Noir responded with an easy grin.

“Sure. Let’s stop what we’re doing because it clearly isn’t working,” she suggested gently.

“Yes, we need to try something else.”

“Edging along the walls worked for me. That can’t possibly get us upstairs, though.”

Marinette pressed the knuckles of her free hand to her lips and went into deep thought. They could travel along the wall without getting lost… because it was something solid?

“Maybe,” she thought out loud. “Miss Direction can confuse our minds into getting lost, but she can’t alter the physical structure of things.”

“Okay,” Chat Noir said slowly. “If we manage to get to the stairs, we can get up if we hold tight to the rails all the way like old people.”

“There has to be a faster way. Something we can use.”

“All we have is my staff,” Chat Noir said.

Their eyes lit up at the same time. In a flash, Chat Noir slammed his staff on the floor and it shot upwards. Marinette wrapped her arms around his neck and they rocketed up with it, dropping rather ungracefully in a tangle of legs. When Marinette got to her feet, she was half-prepared to find herself still on the first floor, exactly where they started. She saw the railing of the second floor balcony overlooking the atrium of the mall, and she was so relieved that she flung her arms around Chat Noir’s neck again. This time, it was a hug.

“We made it!” she cheered, squeezing him tightly.

She felt his laughter rumble in his chest. “Well, I’ve still got work to do. Miss Direction is one floor up.”

Marinette pulled back slightly, keeping her arms locked in place in case he tried to fly off without her. Their noses nearly bumped and she knew Chat Noir would ruin it with some suggestive comment.

“Are you having déjà vu?” he asked in a half-whisper.

“What,” Marinette said flatly, expecting this to be the first half of a pickup line.

“Really? It breaks my heart that you don’t remember,” he said woefully, although the smile on his face contradicted the tone of his voice. 

“Remember what?” Marinette demanded, eyes darting up from his mouth to glare at him. 

“The first time we met, Marinette,” he replied. “We did this.”

His staff shot up and again they soared to the next floor. Chat Noir scooped one arm beneath her knees to hold her entire body up before dropping to his feet on the balcony. Marinette rolled her eyes, but the landing was much smoother this way.

“Here’s your stop, Princess,” he said, putting her down.

For some reason that was what triggered the déjà vu. Years ago, she had to cooperate with him as Marinette. She had so many adventures with Chat Noir over time, many of those small moments were a blur.

“I can’t believe you remember that one night,” she told him.

Chat Noir was smirking. “How did you think I knew your name, Marinette?”

“I… I didn’t tell you at the gym?”

Chat winked.

Oh, god. She hadn’t. She was so familiar with Chat Noir that she never questioned why he was familiar with her as Marinette.

“You’ve been a good companion as usual, but please don’t come near Miss Direction. I can handle it from here,” he told her.

Marinette nodded quietly. Chat Noir placed a hand at the back of her head and pecked an amiable kiss on her hair before darting away.

She spent a while internally debating over how much time was enough for Ladybug to casually appear without being extremely obvious. Her mind was still registering that Chat Noir was aware of and interested in Marinette all this time, and she hadn’t been nearly as careful with her identity as she should have.

After she transformed into Ladybug, the Miss Direction problem was easily solved and Chloe was liberated, with no remorse and no lesson learned. As they escorted her out, she screeched complaints about how long it took them to free her and all the ways her day had been ruined by this. Ladybug rolled her eyes and looked toward Chat Noir for solidarity. But he wasn’t beside them.

Ladybug looked over her shoulder and saw Chat Noir lingering around the spot where he had left Marinette before the fight.


	3. Chapter 3

Alya accosted Marinette with questions about her adventure with Chat Noir when they met up for class the next morning.

“It wasn’t anything exciting, we were mostly walking around in circles.”

“What did he say about Ladybug?”

Marinette thought about when Chat Noir vented to her. The importance he placed on Ladybug’s opinion of him. “Nothing, really. Only briefly mentioned he was worried she hadn’t shown up. I already told you I didn’t get to see her.”

Marinette took her seat and fished through her backpack for a textbook, mainly as an excuse to turn her back and not look Alya in the eye. Alya forcefully prodded her side, calling her name.

“What?” Marinette asked irritably. She whipped her head up, and found someone standing at their desk.

“Were you at the mall yesterday too?” Adrien asked her.

Marinette’s heart plummeted to her stomach. Her tongue suddenly felt thick and heavy in her mouth, and her thoughts jammed with the buzz of adoration that looking at Adrien caused.

“No, I—I, well—Yes, was. I was,” Marinette’s mouth stumbled through an uncoordinated reply.

“Are you in this class, Adrien?” Alya asked. She and Marinette both knew he wasn’t. They both knew well from experience that it was best to cut Marinette off early when speaking to Adrien, before she said too much nonsense. Marinette certainly wasn't going to be the one to stop herself.

“No,” he responded with a sheepish smile. “But I overheard you asking Marinette about Chat Noir from the hall and couldn’t help being nosy.”

Marinette mirrored his smile in stunned silence.

Alya, the perfect friend that she was, spoke up before the moment became painfully awkward. “So you love Chat Noir? Marinette spent the entire day with him, she's got great stories. They are practically best friends. There’s so much she could tell you about him, right? Marinette?”

Alya kicked Marinette’s ankle beneath their desk, springing Marinette to attention.

“Yes, I like Chat Noir too,” she agreed more enthusiastically than she intended to.

Their professor entered the classroom and Adrien swiftly grabbed Alya’s pen from the desk. He kneeled down to jot something in Marinette’s open notebook. “No time to talk about it, unfortunately, but send me a text maybe,” he said, looking up at her with a nervous gaze.

 _Why would he be nervous?_ Marinette asked herself. _You’re projecting onto him._

She forgot to say anything in response to him, so with a gentle smile he waved goodbye to the girls and slipped out of the classroom. Marinette could hear the students behind her whispering his name excitedly. Her heart raced and her hands shook.

“You still can’t keep yourself together in front of Adrien, huh?” Alya muttered, leaning over to check what he'd written.

It was upside down, but clearly a number. A phone number. One that Marinette already had saved, but only because she obtained it through shady circumstances. She clapped one hand over her mouth to contain the squeal that threatened to come out. 

Marinette barely managed to focus on the lecture, and only after Alya forced her to stop dreamily staring Adrien’s number by turning the page for her. After class, the girls headed to Alya’s flat to sort out Marinette’s scrambled thoughts.

“Didn’t you say your crush on Adrien had died down?” Alya teased, leading Marinette up the narrow stairs to her bedroom.

“Well, apparently, I lied,” Marinette answered, tossing her backpack to the nearest corner and flopping face-first onto Alya’s unmade bed.

After high school, Marinette had stopped seeing Adrien around on a daily basis. Although he was also in the fashion program at her university, they hadn’t been placed in the same classes. She did not see him around the school much either, because Adrien was not there often. With his connections, he didn't need a degree to form a career. It was common knowledge that Adrien had taken an apprenticeship directly under his father, clearly preparing to eventually take over his clothing lines. It was serious work that ate up his time, so earning a degree to put up on the wall was more of an afterthought. With Adrien out of sight, it was easier for him to be put out of mind too. Marinette had forgotten that she fell to pieces in front of him.

“Adrien giving you his number was one of your fantasies, how does it feel to have your dream come true?” Alya egged on, using her journalist voice.

“It feels like anxiety,” Marinette’s voice came muffled through the bed’s comforter.

Alya toed off her shoes and crawled beside Marinette. “ _He_ approached _you_. I bet he is just as anxious to hear from you.”

Marinette rolled onto her back, where she could look straight up into Alya’s eyes. “No, it’s completely different. I’m nervous because I’m completely in love with him and he… just wants to hear gossip about Chat Noir and Ladybug.”

"Who cares!" Alya pinched a lock of Marinette’s bangs between two fingers and yanked gently, just enough to make her wince. "It’s an excuse to invite Adrien out for coffee—Take it. It could lead to something, or maybe not, but you have to just do it to find out.”

Marinette nodded and told Alya she would compose a text later. When she arrived home that evening, she stared at Adrien’s phone number a whole lot. She did not send a text. She sat on it for days until Alya snatched her phone and sent one for her: “Hello, Adrien!”

Marinette almost screamed when her phone buzzed with a reply: “Marinette! What are you up to?”

_What am I up to? What I’m up to is still pining over you._

Marinette froze up as usual, her mind overthinking the ways every word she typed could be misconstrued by Adrien. In the end, Alya impatiently supplied a casual response for her: “Not much, just bored.”

When her phone lit up with his next message—“Want to get a coffee at the bookstore?”—Marinette did scream.

She immediately began to panic, so Alya calmed her down and pushed Marinette to start fixing up her hair and makeup. In the ten minutes it took her, Alya had already dug through Marinette’s closet for a complete outfit.

“I know if I leave it up to you, you'll spend so much time debating what to wear that it will make you six hours late,” she explained.

“You’re the greatest,” Marinette sighed in relief, because she was absolutely right.

Alya smiled warmly. “I know, but I love to hear you say it. Now, Marinette, this is serious: Don't tense up and be yourself, god damn it.”

Marinette nodded, feeling too insecure to make any promises. 

"Pretend he's me if you have to," Alya added with a suggestive wink, and they both laughed. It helped Marinette relax slightly. 

“I’m sure it will be fine and Adrien will ask you out again next week,” Alya reassured, before leaving Marinette on her own a couple of blocks away from the bookstore.

It was not fine. 

The majority of their time was spent in awkward silence, forcing smiles at each other from behind coffee mugs. Adrien had asked a few questions about what happened with Chat Noir at the mall, but Marinette fumbled through her answers and severely downplayed the excitement of a situation that was already not very exciting (in comparison to other crises they had faced, at least). Adrien looked disappointed, and Marinette mentally smacked herself for not embellishing the story to sound cooler.

Why was she so timid in front of him? Why couldn’t she treat him as casually as she does Alya or Chat Noir? _Pretend he's Chat Noir if you have to_ , Alya's voice instructed in her mind. It would go much smoother than trying to swap Adrien with Alya, at least. She gave it a shot during another round of uncomfortably quiet coffee sips, but it only sank in that this would never work. 

Chat Noir was far more… well, chatty. He did most of the conversational work for her, filling in any silence with something goofy before it had a chance to become awkward. Adrien was not one to initiate conversation, and his replies to Marinette were mostly to the point. She couldn’t be playful towards him the way she would to Chat Noir without feeling self-conscious. He was already so much cooler than her.

Their suffering ended with Adrien checking his phone and saying he had somewhere to be.  _Convenient_ , Marinette thought, as a pit of dread descended in her stomach. She should have felt relief that this disaster of a “date” was over, but making up an excuse to get away from her stung.

Adrien paused before leaving. Rapped his fingers gently on the coffee table. “So, Marinette… Do you want to go see a movie on the weekend?”

“Why?” Marinette blurted the first thought that came to her mind.

Adrien looked taken back and she wished she could shove the word back in her mouth.

“Well, it’s alright if you don’t want to,” he answered politely, although his shoulders had fallen to a slouch.

“No, no, I want to!”

He looked so confused. She knew she was sending mixed signals. Jesus, she had no clue she could be so bad at this. Normally, she wasn't. At the same time, Marinette was confused over why Adrien would want to see her again after they had such an objectively bad time. It was a question that kept her up late the next few nights leading up to the day they agreed to meet at the movies.

Unfortunately, she would never know the answer. On that morning, she awoke to news reports that a werewolf was seen chasing pedestrians at the center of Paris in the night. 

She forced herself to write a text to Adrien, canceling the movie together: “I caught a fever and can’t get out of bed. So sorry!”

Hitting send felt like pulling a trigger. She was killing her chances with Adrien when he finally asked her out after all these years. A coil of anger and frustration and longing tightened in her chest. But Ladybug was more important than Marinette.


	4. Chapter 4

Adrien woke up several hours later than usual that Saturday. He felt so jittery over seeing Marinette the next day that he couldn’t go to sleep properly. It was a bizarre feeling that didn’t occur to him often, especially not over girls. Still groggy, he blindly felt around for his phone.

When he checked the time, he saw a text from Marinette. “I caught a fever and can’t get out of bed. So sorry!”

Adrien threw an arm over his eyes, nestling the bridge of his nose into his elbow. He tried to fight off the vicious insecurity that she wasn’t actually sick. Worrying over whether Marinette actually wanted to come was one of the things that kept him up. When he asked her if she wanted to see the movie, her initial response had been, _“Why?”_

The memory of it made Adrien wince behind the crook of his arm. He wished his bed would let him sink into it and swallow him forever. He didn’t blame Marinette for not being interested. He knew she could get along just fine with him. They had exciting times together when he was Chat Noir. But Adrien was not an exciting person while unmasked. Without the security of a mask to hide behind, Adrien was unable to make any amusing conversation with Marinette. Adrien knew it was his fault, not hers. He hoped to use the movie as a second chance to let more of his personality show through, but…

He couldn’t guilt Marinette into being his friend. Maybe she knew that Nino had gone to study in California, only coming back to Paris during school breaks, and Adrien had no one to go out with during the long months in between. Why else would she agree to a second date when the first was painfully awkward for everyone involved? Adrien needed to stop lingering on this. He rolled out of bed and began his morning routine by flipping the TV on and getting ready to shower.

Drying off in front of his foggy mirror, he could hear a strange news update through the half-open door. Something about a werewolf attack. It wasn’t long before Chat Noir was out on the rooftops of Paris, keeping an eye out for a wolf on the streets of his city.

Adrien actually felt relieved Marinette had canceled. He told himself it was good luck in disguise as a terrible disappointment. This way, he wouldn’t be worried about needing to disappear in the middle of the film if Ladybug called. It was great. He felt fine. Really. Just fine.

He went to the area where the attacks had taken place, and was happy to find Ladybug already there. Since the day they met, being around her always helped him forget any of Adrien’s sadness. But today the air around her was different. Chat Noir couldn’t pinpoint it exactly, but something about their investigation felt as though Ladybug’s heart was not in it. A lack of playfulness, even when they found successful clues. A tenseness in her smile when he tried to lighten the mood.

At least things went back to normal between them as soon as they found the beast. The thrill and the danger of attacking a giant wolf with superpowers left no room for thoughts of anything outside of the action. Any emotions trying to pull them down were drowned out by surges of adrenaline. Fortunately for Ladybug, she went mostly ignored by their enemy because the wolf was only interested in chasing the cat around. By a stroke of luck for Ladybug and a near-death experience for Chat Noir, she was able to unclasp the monster’s collar and purify the akuma within it.

Razor sharp fangs that were a moment away from sinking into Chat Noir’s neck (he’d felt them push into the armor at his neck for one horrifying split second) pulled away, and the wolfman stumbled backwards as it regained its human form.

“Chat! Are you hurt?” Ladybug panted, rushing to his side.

He was too shaken to respond with anything more than a thumbs up, focusing mostly on stopping his legs from giving out. Despite her earring beeping loudly, Ladybug slid her hand underneath his jaw, searching for any damage. She tugged his bell down just an inch—his heart skipped anyway—to open up the collar of his suit. Was he imagining things, or could he feel a tremble in her fingertips as she brushed them along the exposed skin of his neck? He felt lightheaded, and she wasn’t helping. 

After finding no visible harm, she said with a smug smile, “Almost lost your head there. It would have been embarrassing for you to get wrecked by a little girl.”

“Huh?”

Ladybug stepped aside to give him a clear view of a little girl curled up on the grass, eyes shining with tears she was barely holding in. She couldn’t be older than ten.

“ _That_ was terrorizing Paris? Her evil form should have been puppy sized,” he blurted out, making Ladybug laugh. The firstgenuine one he’d gotten from her all night.

“Gotta go,” she giggled, with a tap to her ringing miraculous.

“Wait,” he said, still breathless from the chase.

She waited, although her urgent stance made it obvious she was fighting her better instincts to run. His ring began its countdown.

“Are you okay?” he asked, too alarmed by their time running short to grasp for more articulate wording.

Ladybug cocked her head. “Yes? The wolf barely touched me. So good work!”

She was already running off before she finished speaking. That wasn’t what he was asking about. She seemed happier than earlier, at least. Aware of his ring chiming, Chat Noir sprinted in the opposite direction. He ducked behind a parked van as Chat Noir, and nonchalantly power-walked across the street as Adrien Agreste.

“Where are you going in such a hurry?” asked a voice from his shirt pocket.

“To the drugstore.”

Plagg clicked his tongue three times. “I can’t believe you’re leaving that little girl alone.”

“I’m not,” Adrien hissed, lowering his voice so he wouldn’t seem crazy to an old couple passing by. “I’m picking up a snack so Chat Noir can take her home.”

“Do it yourself! I’m tired,” Plagg whined.

“Stranger danger,” Adrien replied sternly.

“What the hell?”

“It means kids her age aren’t supposed to let strange adult men take them places.”

“Unless they are masked? That’s more shady,” Plagg retorted.

“Chat Noir’s not a stranger, okay,” Adrien mumbled, shushing Plagg as they reached the first convenience store in sight.

Their progress was delayed by Plagg objecting to every snack Adrien picked up. Nothing at a drugstore was going to be gourmet, so Adrien bought a bag of doritos and shoved them into Plagg’s mouth on the street corner. By the time he returned to the park where they had saved the girl, she was nowhere in sight. Chat Noir ran through the park twice, but found no one.

Cursing repeatedly beneath his breath, he took to the rooftops. From above, he spotted her walking hand-in-hand with someone else only a few blocks away. Chat Noir jumped from building to building until he was close enough to faintly hear the girl’s sniffling voice.

“I was so upset that my dog ran away…”

“I would be too, don’t be embarrassed,” another female voice answered. “After all, wasn’t it cool to see Ladybug?”

“Yeah, but I like Chat Noir more.”

“He’s fun too. I’ve seen him person before,” the lady replied, eliciting an excited gasp from the little girl.

She seemed to be in safe hands, but Chat Noir kept hopping along the rooftops with his ears straining to hear their conversation. It didn’t hurt to make sure they got home safely… and he couldn’t resist listening in on stories about himself.

“I was at the mall when someone who was very upset made everyone lose their sense of direction. I got lost with Chat Noir and we walked around in circles for almost an hour…”

Marinette? It was hard to tell from overhead, but she was the only person who could be telling this story. He remembered her message from this very same morning, and his stomach sank. She wasn’t ill at all. He tried to convince himself that he was only being insecure, but the nagging feeling that she had made it up to avoid him was true. He felt a savage urge to transform back and conveniently come across her. See if she would lie to his face.

But… that would be hypocritical, wouldn’t it? After all, with the emergency that came up, Adrien would have needed to make up an excuse if Marinette didn’t beat him to it. Any friendship with Adrien would be based on deceit, because of his secret identity. As long as he was keeping half of his life hidden from her right off the bat, it was pretty unfair to get upset over a white lie to avoid another uncomfortable date. Marinette was currently going out of her way to help a lost child, she couldn’t possibly be a person who does things with malicious intent…

From the roof of a grocery store, he watched Marinette and the girl disappear into a police station for twenty minutes or so. When Marinette came out alone, she didn’t even see Chat Noir leaning on the wall beside the exit.

“Bonsoir, princess.”

“Agh!”

Marinette cried out, whirling around to face him. He couldn’t stop himself from laughing, which earned him a smack on the arm.

“What are you doing lurking here?”

“Lurking has a creepy connotation. I’m waiting for you.”

“You scared me, hence you were lurking,” Marinette insisted.

“I was _waiting_ to tell you something important.”

Marinette blinked. “Me? What could I possibly have to do with any of your business?”

“Shall I walk you home?” Chat Noir extended his arm to her.

“O… kay.” Marinette hesitantly slid her hand into the crook of his arm and walked with him. “We’re not in a maze anymore, I’m not going to get lost if I don’t hang onto you.”

“I know, but isn’t it nice?”

Marinette rolled her eyes and pulled her hand away. “I thought you said this was important.”

“I promise it is, but it’s something I need to say in private.”

“Okay. You’re stressing me out, but okay.”

Chat bit his tongue to keep from admitting that he definitely felt more stressed. Marinette led him back to her house, where she warned him to walk quietly to avoid waking her parents. She didn’t bother turning on the lights. She took his hand and easily navigated the familiar darkness of her home with him carefully trailing behind her. When she flicked them on in her room, Chat Noir needed to blink a few times to adjust. He was pleased to immediately find an Adrien Agreste poster on the first wall he laid eyes on.

Marinette quietly closed the door behind him. “What did you need to tell me?” 

Chat Noir could not contain his grin. “I was just thinking about how I want to be honest with you about everything.”

Marinette raised an eyebrow. “Like what.”

“Like who I really am when I’m not Chat Noir.”

Her other eyebrow shot up to join its perplexed sister. “Why would you tell me that?”

“Because I want to be your friend, and I want you to trust me.”

He brought his hands together and began to pull the miraculous ring off his finger. With a gasp, Marinette leapt forward and clasped her hands over his. 

“Put that back!” she demanded in a hushed yell, while they scuffled over his ring. “You’re already my friend and I trust you more than anyone, you don’t need to do this.”

Chat Noir froze. Marinette seized the opportunity to push his miraculous back into place and clench both of her palms over his ring hand in a vice-like grip. 

“More than anyone?” he asked, and Marinette froze too.

The stillness in the room was almost stifling. Marinette looked as surprised as he felt. 

“Well, yeah,” Marinette attempted a casual tone. It wasn’t convincing. “You’ve been there in the most intense moments of my life… the very few that I’ve had. That makes you important to me.”

Somehow, the last part came off deeply convincing. Chat Noir looked down at their hands. Marinette was still gripping his tightly, as if scared that he would rip the ring off if she gave him access to it. It made him smile. “I still want you to know who I really am.”

“Chat. Stop.” Marinette commanded quietly. “It wouldn’t be fair.”

“How is it unfair?”

“To Ladybug. You don’t know her identity, right?”

Chat Noir thought he heard something strained in the way she said _right?_ , but couldn’t guess why. He shook his head. Marinette sighed.

“But she and I agreed it’s safest for us not to know, since we aren’t immune to being corrupted by akuma ourselves,” he explained.

“Then aren’t you endangering me if I’m the only person who knows who you are?”

Chat said nothing, so Marinette continued, “No one should know who Chat Noir or Ladybug are. You need to accept that people like you aren’t meant to have normal relationships. Being miraculous means always deceiving the people you care about most. Sharing all of yourself with someone is not an option. Not when you want to be friends. Not when you love them with all your heart. Not ever.”

Marinette’s eyes were locked on his, her gaze as piercing as her words. Chat Noir felt something prickling at the corners of his own. The tension constricted him for a few painful seconds, until Marinette’s eyes darted down.

“I—I’m sorry, Chat. I got carried away. I shouldn’t have said that when I don’t have any idea what it’s like to be in your place,” she spoke quietly, looking anywhere but his face.

Chat Noir cleared his throat, worried that his voice would come out sounding as frail as he felt. “No, your idea was pretty spot on. You’re right. I wanted something I’m not supposed to have, as usual.”

Marinette released his hands, and they fell to his side like dead weights. She half-stepped forward to close the small distance between them and pull him into a warm hug. With her chin resting on his shoulder, she whispered into his ear, “You’ve always been there for me when I needed you, and not knowing your name doesn’t devalue that.”

Chat Noir slumped into the embrace. “That’s the problem. Someone like me is only needed, but never wanted around.”  



	5. Chapter 5

Marinette should not have let Chat Noir into her room. She should not have let Chat Noir do a lot of things, because now she had said a lot of words she hadn’t meant to him and everything went downhill fast. Well, she _had_ meant them. Just not towards him. From the moment Marinette sent that text in the morning, she surged with bitterness all day over her responsibilities as Ladybug always taking priority above Marinette’s personal life. Long-suffering frustrations from her necessity to hide Ladybug at endless personal costs erupted when Chat Noir tried to reveal himself to a girl that he, from his perspective, barely knows. Because he wants to be honest? If it could be that easy, she should have told Alya or her parents long ago and never needed to lie straight to their faces for years while they trusted her with everything.

But it wasn’t her business to tell Chat Noir how to keep his secrets. The moment Marinette acknowledged she was lashing out at Chat for reasons that had nothing to do with him, it was already too late. She couldn’t take back those words or confess that she had actually been talking about herself. She could only wrap her arms around him, half apology and half distraction. Instead of reciprocating the gesture, he left his arms hanging limp at his sides and slumped against her. Marinette allowed the weight of his body and her guilt to pull them down. They sank, knees knocking together gently before making contact with her floors.

Though his arms never came up, she held Chat Noir against her in this kneeling position until a muffled, “I’ll go now,” came from her sleeve.

She couldn’t let him leave after what he had said. Only needed around, never wanted. “Are you sure you don’t want to talk?”

Chat Noir pulled away from the embrace, blinking around at her room as if confused to find himself in this position. “About what?”

“Anything. I just like your company.”

His frown twitched just slightly, and she knew he was fighting off a smile. Marinette was caught off guard by a wave of warm affection rolling over her. She had only said it to comfort him. She shouldn't have been shocked to find that she actually meant it.

“It’s my best friend’s birthday next Sunday. I think you should come to her party,” Marinette offered. 

Chat Noir’s reluctant smile gave way to a full on smirk. “You want me to pop out of a cake for her?”

“I’d pick someone good-looking for that,” Marinette countered. She punctuated it with a playful, open palmed shove to his chest and a soft “ _tsssss_ ” sound effect.

Gloved fingers wrapped around her wrist before she could pull away. “If I’m not hot, then why am I sizzling, Marinette?”

“That was the sound of me burning you!”

Marinette tugged her wrist back against her chest, unintentionally bringing Chat Noir with it. He pitched forward from the force of her pull, flinging his free hand over Marinette’s head to brace against the nearest surface before his weight tipped them over.

Chat Noir’s extended arm, propped against the pink futon a few inches behind Marinette, was the only thing keeping them vertical. At some point, Marinette’s free hand had come up to grip his shoulder, using it to hold herself up in their unbalanced position. Their torsos pressed together, pinning Marinette and Chat Noir’s other arms in between. 

Marinette didn’t realize she wasn’t breathing until she felt the rise of Chat Noir’s chest against her own, distracted by an alarming awareness of his knees balanced on either side of her thighs. His exhale ghosted over her lips and she thought vaguely about how she never looked at him this closely. Their faces had been this close on many occasions, even closer on just one, but it was always too urgent for her to _look_ at him. Inexplicably, her thoughts jumped to earlier in the night when she was scared for a moment that she had broken the werewolf’s curse too late and let him get hurt. The last thing she had seen were its jaws around his neck and Chat Noir was ready to die so that Ladybug could save a complete stranger–

Marinette pressed her lips against his, barely needing to move an inch to do so. She felt his grip tighten around the wrist of her arm trapped between their bodies, and Chat’s lips slowly parted to return the kiss. Marinette’s train of thought sped through vivid memories of the many times Chat Noir had sacrificed himself for her, not knowing that she would save him, but trusting her completely to do so. Her kiss grew hungrier, more open-mouthed and urgent. Chat Noir was eager to comply, flicked his tongue out to trail along the inside of her top lip. Marinette closed her lips around its smooth softness and heard his breath hitch.

Letting their lips and tongues slide together, Chat Noir’s body pulled away from Marinette’s. Just enough to regain his own balance and have the space to let go of Marinette’s wrist. With her eyes closed and her focus on the sensations from his mouth, Marinette made a small noise of surprise at the back of her throat when a sharp tip of a claw trailed along the side of her jaw. His hand slipped around to cup the back of her head, pulling a more distinct sound of pleasure from Marinette when several claws lightly scratched over the back of her neck. She could feel Chat Noir’s smile against her mouth before he pressed closer, deepening the kiss. Sharp points circled the sensitive skin of Marinette’s nape slowly, deliberately, imitating the motions of his tongue against hers. Every nerve was electric, turning the lightest touches into an amplified experience for her. An intense need for something was mounting beneath her skin, making Marinette’s head spin. It took a shocking amount of willpower to wrench her lips away from him.

Cat eyes fixed on her with blown out pupils, only the thinnest ring of green around their edges. The darkest she had ever seen them. His lips flushed bright pink, slightly swollen and parted as he caught his breath. Marinette almost leaned into them again. She stopped the impulse in its track, abruptly realizing what a problem he was becoming.

“Ihavework,” she breathed, forcing herself to look up from his mouth. She clarified, “In the morning.”

A familiar pout flashed across Chat Noir’s face, although she didn't remember him pouting often. “Are you kicking me out?”

He didn’t wait for an answer to pull away from Marinette slowly, untangling their arms and legs.

“No, I’m not, I just… need to be responsible,” Marinette answered. She wasn’t referring to her work.

She reached out for the futon behind her and pulled herself up to sit on its edge. Instead of getting up, Chat Noir crawled forward to rest his chin on her knee.  “And when will I see you again, princess?”

Something about his adoring gaze from that position shot a shiver straight down to the base of her spine. Marinette felt her cheeks flush, and the smile growing on Chat’s face let her know it was visible as well. Officially flustered, she pushed him back with one foot and jumped to her feet.

“ _Well_ , it’s not as if I can call you, so we’ll just see each other around.” She made a valiant attempt at playing this off casually while scurrying to her window.

By the time she unlatched and pushed it open, Chat Noir’s familiar warmth was at her back. She stepped aside to let him through, reluctant to look him in the eye.

He paused with one leg out her window. “So where do you work anyway?”

“I help my parents downstairs. Don’t even think of visiting me there, ever,” Marinette warned.

“Is your dad a baker?”

“If you’re going to say anything about my buns, I swear to god I will push you out.”

With a laugh and a quick kiss on her head, Chat Noir ducked out. Marinette watched him disappear into the night before pulling her window closed.

“Marinette! What was that?” a small voice cried.

She spun around to find Tikki coming out from her jewelry box.

“I’ll let you know as soon as I figure it out,” she mumbled.

“You never told me you thought of Chat Noir that way…”

“I don’t! We were just play fighting and,” Marinette ended the sentence on a comma, helplessly grasping for an explanation.

Why did she do that? Was it pity? No. It would make sense for it to be pity. But it wasn’t.

Tikki giggled deviously. “I bet Chat Noir would faint if he knew you were Ladybug!”

“I doubt it,” Marinette answered. “He’s such a flirt, it’s all just fun and games for him. I bet he goes around seducing innocent Parisians all the time with his hero status and all. He was very casual about it, wasn’t he?”

Tikki shrugged, and Marinette stopped just short of responding  _Tikki, validate me!_

“Just be careful. He’s the person who knows Ladybug best. He could connect the dots between her and Marinette far more easily than your friends and family.”

“I know,” Marinette sighed. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's a reference to salsa dancing in this chapter, which it has come to my attention that some people aren't familiar with. you can peek at this video to help you visualize: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLHP8hl7GfM> ( _chat chat real smooth_ )

It was tradition for Marinette to wake up early on Alya’s birthday and bake a cake in the patisserie. Marinette's favorite part was decorating, and she developed a very signature style over the years. She loved to use an excessive amount of frosting and little chocolate pearls to decorate the cake. She was particularly proud of her flawless cake-writing, which looked much lovelier than her real handwriting. Specifically, the way she wrote "Alya" was honed to perfection. The first couple of years, she would write sweet cake messages to Alya showing this off. As they grew older, the tone of the messages… evolved. The last five birthday cakes Alya received said:

“It is your birthday, Alya.” (The first timid venture into sarcastic messages.)  
“Happy removal day, Alya.” (The year Marinette discovered Alya was c-sectioned.)  
“Happy disgrace to baking, Alya.” (The year of Alya’s vegan phase.)  
[Chinese sentence that Marinette told Alya meant “Happy Birthday to my best friend in the world, Alya,” until 2 AM that night when Marinette confessed it said “According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly, Alya.”]  
“I haven’t slept. Alya.” (Last year, when Marinette had a final due the night before her birthday.)

This year, Marinette painstakingly spelled out “TURN UP ALYA” in edible glitter. It was a work of art, honestly. Alya acknowledged its beauty (as any cultured person with good taste would) and selflessly announced that she would not eat a single piece until her party started and everyone had seen it.

Alya had moved out on her own after high school. Without parents to be respectful of or any neighbors to complain (the guys below her were a couple of stoners she invited every year), her birthday parties had become an event all her friends looked forward to. Her flat was more spacious than expected for something affordable to a student… the catch being that it was an old building with no elevator, so everyone had to drag themselves up seven flights of stairs to get to her. Alya was charming enough for her apartment to be nearly full by 9 PM despite this.

Her best friend looked stunning, decked out in golden accessories and a mint green mini dress with an adorably puffy skirt. While Alya greeted friends, Marinette took responsibility for setting up the snack table. They accidentally abandoned the task earlier because the two kept getting sidetracked by drinks and their own silliness (not even beverage-induced, they were always like this) while getting ready.

_“Alya, where are the rest of the chips?” Marinette had asked, sifting through grocery bags two hours earlier._

_“What do you mean?”_

_“There’s only like five giant Doritos bags in here.”_

_“You don’t think that’s enough?”_

_“It’s an excessive amount of only Doritos. You couldn’t get something good, like Lays?”_

_Alya looked at her with an expression of pure betrayal, and spiked the bag of Doritos like a volleyball right out of Marinette’s hands. It fell to the floor with a depressing pop. At least it was closed._

_“Eat your Lays in hell, this is a Doritos household!”_

Marinette snorted to herself, recalling everything that bag of Doritos had been through, as she broke it open and poured it into a bowl. Through the music, Marinette heard a dull tapping sound come from somewhere nearby. She glanced up and what she saw there made her scream and nearly send the Dorito bowl flying. Every pair of eyes in the room turned towards her, then the window in front of her, and then nearly everyone gasped or shouted too.

“It’s Chat Noir!”

Familiar green eyes were glowing from the other side of the glass. After getting over the initial panic of seeing a face looming in the darkness outside a seventh story window, Marinette flipped the latch and pushed it up. Or, attempted to, with herculean effort, while listening to muffled laughter from the outside.

"It's a really old building!" Marinette attempted to defend herself struggling against the stuck window.

Eventually, Alya lent an extra pair of arms and they both pried it open just enough for Chat Noir to prowl through.

“Is something wrong? What’s the emergency?” Alya interrogated without any prelude, already holding her phone up to his face.

“None, everything is fine, there’s nothing to worry about tonight,” Chat Noir promised the phone recording. “I just wanted to bring you a _purresent_.”

He held up a bottle of wine with a thick black bow tied around the neck.

Alya took it, examining the label. “This looks fancy. How’d you know it’s my birthday?”

Cat eyes flitted over Alya’s shoulder to meet Marinette’s. Marinette shook her head at him.

“I saw your post on Ladyblog,” Chat Noir answered, holding Marinette’s gaze.

Alya squealed, and his attention returned to her. She pushed her back against his chest, holding the cellphone up to a selfie angle. “Did you hear that? Chat Noir follows my Ladyblog!”

Chat Noir threw an arm over her shoulder and grinned at her phone. “Of course, I am Ladybug’s biggest fan!”

“It’s cute that you think that,” Alya deadpanned with a forced smile, before tapping the screen to stop recording.

“Hey, can I get a selfie?” one of the stoners from the floor below asked, which Chat Noir agreed to with enthusiasm.

Alya stepped aside, dodging a small swarm forming to wait their turn for a picture. 

Marinette feigned astonishment. “Wow, so cool to have a celebrity appearance at your birthday!”

“I know! I hope he sticks around.”

“I think he will. He loves the attention, just look at him.” Marinette rolled her eyes at Chat Noir flexing for a photo with two girls.

“Oh, I’m looking,” her friend replied lasciviously.

“Alya. Please.” Maybe she _would_ have liked Chat Noir’s idea to come out of a cake for her.

“What? You’ve been so coy since Saturday.”

“W-Wha...?” How did she know about that?

“You can’t keep secrets from me.” Alya booped Marinette's nose, oblivious to the fact that whatever she was talking about right now could only be the tip of Marinette’s secret iceberg. “I didn’t forget that you had a second date with Adrien.”

Oh. Oh, _no_. With the madness of a werewolf on the loose and then whatever the hell happened with Chat Noir at night, she had completely forgotten to text him after she blew off their movie date. No. She didn’t blow it off, she had to cancel it to save Paris and still felt miserable about it. But she wouldn’t tell Adrien that, ever. So as far as he would know, she blew him off and never talked to him again.

“I didn’t,” Marinette whispered. Well, stage whispered so that Alya would still hear her over sounds of the party.

Alya’s loud reaction to this devastating news was, fortunately, cut short by a group of friends calling her name from across the room. They were at a visible level of inebriation, standing around a Twister mat, and begging Alya to join one game.

“Your people need you,” Marinette urged, eager to not talk about this.

“Okay, okay!” Alya called to her friends, before turning back to Marinette. “We’re gonna talk about it later, but right now you need to invite Adrien to this party.”

“That’s ridiculous, it’s too late,” Marinette grumbled.

“It's not even midnight. Even Chat Noir showed up, anything is possible. Just do it.”

 _That’s one more reason why Adrien shouldn’t come,_ Marinette thought to herself as Alya left to socialize. She glanced over to Chat Noir, who was still surrounded by starstruck students vying for his attention. He looked up, their eyes locking for a split second as he caught her gazing at him. Marinette quickly averted her eyes, feeling red-handed somehow.

She focused on her phone for distraction, jittery fingers pulling up her text messages. Alya’s advice was always solid. It was a shame Marinette never followed it. She stared at the last message she had sent to Adrien, cancelling their date.

 **✓ Read** Saturday.

No response. No reaction. No rain check.

Maybe she should invite him. Maybe he was waiting for Marinette to make the first move. _Sounds a lot like wishful thinking,_ a traitorous voice hissed at the back of her mind. _What would you do once he’s here? Exchange awkward small talk for two minutes and then… let the conversation die? So you can both go home disappointed again?_

Marinette dropped her phone to her side, cursing beneath her breath. She walked towards the side of the room with Alya’s sound system, hoping if she stood by the speakers they could drown out the sound of her own thoughts. It didn’t work. Adrien was a dead end, and Marinette always knew it at some level. She chose to fixate on him because he was unattainable and that made him a safe target for her affections. It was why she always sabotaged herself when it came to him, with all the stuttering and awkwardness that was wildly out of character for her. For as much as she longed for him to reciprocate her feelings, she was afraid the lies she would be forced to spin if he did. The consequences of him finding out he was deceived from day one.

The feeling of something rough gliding against her palm jolted Marinette back to the present moment. It was a hand guiding hers up to press against a pair of lips.

“May I have this dance?” Chat Noir mouthed. Maybe he said it out loud. It was impossible to tell with the speakers booming right behind them.

She allowed him to steer her by that hand towards the dance floor, which had formed in a strange C-shape along the walls, around the intoxicated Twister game taking place at the center of the flat. Marinette shuffled along, only to avoid drawing attention to herself as that quiet girl sulking in the corner. She knew from experience that it was important for Alya to see her having fun, or else her own birthday would quickly take a detour to becoming all about cheering up Marinette.

“Do you know how to dance to this?” Chat Noir asked, his free hand coming up to rest between Marinette’s shoulders.

“No.” 

Alya’s taste in music had shifted into a serious salsa phase over the past year, so the majority of her party’s playlist involved a ton of brass and bongos. Not everyone knew dance steps for it, so all they could do was try their best and not judge one another. Her friends that were paired off into dance partners around them were laughing, bonding over trying something new together.

Marinette focused on doing her part, moving her feet and body to the music. Attempting to get into the rhythm of its rampant liveliness was jarring, considering the mood she was actually in. She was also having a hard time looking Chat in the eye, so her eyes stuck to the floor, following the steps of her pumps.

“God, Marinette, I’m up here,” Chat Noir eventually reprimanded.

“I’m looking at _my feet!_ ” she blustered.

Marinette defensively jerked her head up, fixing a glare on the golden bell slightly below her eye level. She could hear it chime faintly from his movements back and forth. His hand was cool on her back and every time she shifted against it, the tips of pointed claws ghosted over the bare skin between her shoulders. It brought back flashes of those same nails pressed against the back of her neck, on purpose that time. Marinette lost rhythm, and stepped on Chat’s foot.

With surprising grace, he covered up her fumble by lifting one arm over her head to lead her into a spin. The momentum of facing him after the turn brought her closer than before, and it was impossible for Marinette not to meet his eyes.

“That was smooth,” Chat Noir remarked, letting go of her hand to rest his forearms on her shoulders. 

Unsure of what to do with her hands now, she placed them on his narrow waist while they swayed. “Don’t praise yourself too soon.”

“I meant you. You didn’t get tangled in the turn.”

She shook her head, unable to keep feigning incompetence. She put up that facade around him to distance Marinette from Ladybug, but her current mood left no patience to let Chat Noir keep thinking he’s better than Marinette at everything. “I said I don’t know how to dance to _this_ , not that I can’t dance at all.”

To backup her claims with cold, hard evidence, Marinette raised her hands over her head. They came to rest on his hands dangling behind her, then slowly guided them over her shoulder with her palms over his. The feeling of his gloves slipping against her collar bones was electric, and it was amusing to see Chat Noir appear dazed by where she was going with this. Marinette stole the lead from him.

She brought their hands forward between them, pulling in close for a heartbeat, a single exhale warm on her ear, before separating again. Marinette didn’t wait a beat before lifting his arm up, maneuvering him into not just one turn, but a series of them. Chat Noir’s disorientation didn’t last more than a second. He swirled through the moves without stumbling over himself, and she wondered if it was clicking for him that she hadn’t been completely truthful about not knowing how to dance to this when she was putting up an act for him. You can't be best friends with Alya without learning a move or two for her favorite songs.

Marinette continued to steer them, becoming more open to improvise the longer she maintained the lead. Chat Noir was alarmingly enthusiastic to follow. He moved naturally in her arms, both of them already attuned to predicting the movements of their bodies after so many years of being partners in combat. Although Chat Noir couldn’t be consciously aware of it, it was the only explanation to why he seemed to flow around her like water even though they were both making it up as they went along.

Picking up the cues of her body, Chat Noir took advantage of the next moment they came close together. Strong hands took Marinette firmly by the waist, and as her partner spun he lifted her into the air for one breathtaking beat. It wasn't until her feet had already hit the floor that she realized how widely she was smiling down at him for that second.

Either unfazed or spurred on by it, he twirled her with one arm and let his free hand trace her waist as she spun. First against her back, then her side, and over her stomach. Her back bumped against his chest and she paused. Chat Noir's trailing fingertips stopped just above the line of her hips. She tensed, something about his movement making her expect his hand to slide lower. His breath drifted hot over her neck, but instead he finished the turn. Marinette was left to face him with a faint blush on her cheeks. Could he see it in the dim lighting? In that instance of self-consciousness, Marinette’s awareness snapped to the feeling of all eyes on them. Chat Noir was the special guest of the night, so everyone must have been watching.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, worried by the way Marinette stopped dead in her tracks.

“Me, I, I just,” Marinette stuttered. Her brain short-circuiting the way it did around Adrien. Why was it doing that?

It was too much. Marinette wrenched her hands out of his grip (much more forcefully than she needed to) and stormed away. She didn’t make it far (two steps, precisely) before barging into one of the couples that had been watching. Something cold splashed Marinette’s chest and she looked down to find she had collided straight into the girl’s glass of wine. The gasps of everyone who saw it ensured that anyone was wasn't already watching Marinette turned their attention to her now. The girl immediately pleaded an apology, and Marinette felt numb. If she didn’t have any rational reason to be insecure before, this was certainly humiliating enough to justify fleeing upstairs.

Brushing it off with a forced smile, she stumbled up the narrow steps to Alya’s cramped second floor, which consisted only of her room and a bathroom. A pair of footsteps stomped up behind her.

“ARE YOU OKAY?” Alya yelled at her, accustomed to conversing by shouting over the music for most of the night. It was unnecessary and awkward in her much quieter room, and both of them laughed.

“Yeah, just a little embarrassed,” Marinette muttered.

“Don’t even sweat it, everyone is still jealous the celebrity guest is into you,” Alya smirked. She opened up her wardrobe and sifted through it. “I bet he thinks it’s fate.”

“What?”

“That he sees you here again, after one serendipitous meeting at the mall,” Alya faked a breathless, lovestruck voice as she turned with some clothes in her arms. “What are the chances?”

The chances were that Marinette is an idiot who invited him. But she had asked him to come before they kissed. She didn’t expect the night to turn that way and maybe he didn’t know that, so now he probably thought Marinette had motives for wanting him here… This train of thought needed to stop.

Alya tossed three dresses onto her unmade bed and circled behind Marinette. “At least one of these has to fit you, so don’t be long,” she said, tugging down the zipper that Marinette had asked her to reach earlier in the day. With a kiss to her cheek, and a comment on how she smells great (the scent of plum wine all over her), Alya left Marinette to clean herself up.

She closed herself in Alya’s tiny bathroom to assess the damage. It was a claustrophobic cubicle with barely enough space for Marinette to turn a full circle in. Seeing the mess down the front of her white dress in proper lighting, Marinette cringed at her reflection in the mirror. A gentle rapping against the door by her ear made her jump. She couldn’t believe Alya came back to rush her already.

“God, you’re clingy,” Marinette accused, cracking the door open to check what she wanted.

“Uh, Ayla sent me,” Chat Noir admitted through the crack. Marinette’s hand jerked up to clutch her dress to her chest, hiding the way that it was sagging forward. “She told me to check if you needed anything,” he continued, “At all. She was pretty aggressive about it.”

_Alya._

“I can handle it, I’ll be out in a sec,” Marinette answered, pushing the door closed.

He waited about ten seconds before tapping his knuckles against it in a series of knocks. Marinette reopened the door for him, exasperated.

“I’ll be honest, I can’t guess why you freaked out a few minutes ago,” he confessed. “But you can tell me if I overstayed my welcome, you know.”

Marinette raised her eyebrows. “Are you under the impression that I would hesitate to tell you to get lost?”

He leaned against the door frame and looked off to the side. “I hope not.”

When he looked back at her, it was with a worried uncertainty.

He was insecure.

That was new.

“There’s no universe where I’d put up with you if I didn't enjoy it,” she promised.

“Good to know,” he responded, before slowly bringing his free hand up to cup her face. Testing the boundaries. Did he think Marinette knew where they were? She was finding out as he went along, sweeping his thumb along her jaw, beneath her chin.

“Are you okay?” he half-spoke, half exhaled.

His thumb was tilting her chin up to look at her directly. There was only one thing Marinette could think of. She followed its motion a step further, tipping herself forward to close the space between them. Her lips pressed against his, and it felt… better than okay. He kissed with a still intensity, surging with urgency that was barely restrained. The kiss was long and slow, because Marinette was making it so, and he didn’t push forward. He held back until she matched him. The feeling of control over the situation was almost intoxicating to Marinette, who never expected to be kissing a guy she didn’t feel like putty in front of.

It sent a rush of adrenaline through her. She pulled him against her, into the narrow crevice that passed for a bathroom somehow. It didn’t work. The space was too tight, the corner of the sink pressed into Marinette’s back, Chat’s every movement caused his elbows to thud against the tile wall, and they only managed to fit by being mostly on top of each other. His breath was too warm on her face, his tongue too soft in her mouth, his body pressed too close against hers. They would make it work. 

Chat Noir wrapped an arm around her, gripping the back of her head to angle it in a way that allowed their kiss to deepen. A muffled sound of pleasure escaped from the back of Marinette’s throat, and Chat swallowed it in his. They kissed roughly, desperately, like this until the pain from the sink counter cutting into her back became too distracting. Marinette braced both hands behind herself and lifted, sitting herself up on the edge. The glove in her hair slithered down her neck, over the uncovered skin of her back.

“Fuck,” Chat panted, realizing the back of her dress was open.

“Shut the door,” Marinette breathed.


	7. Chapter 7

In the claustrophobic space of the bathroom, the heat coming off them made droplets of sweat bead at the hollows of their necks. It fogged the mirror Marinette’s naked back pushed against. The straps of her wine-stained dress had fallen off her shoulders while they kissed like they were starved, and she had left them there.

In contrast to the rough ways their mouths were devouring each other’s with more urgency than grace, Chat Noir’s hand was grazing Marinette’s side with gentle caution. She could feel it in his kiss and through the tensed muscles of his back that he was pulling his own reins, unsure of where they were going. Slowly, tentatively, the coarse palms of his gloves skimmed over her ribs. When his thumb reached the curve of her boob, Marinette arched into the touch, gasped when it brushed over her stiff nipple. It was too little, but even that felt too good.

Crammed too tight between Chat Noir’s chest and the mirror behind, Marinette’s elbow jammed into the tile at her side when she moved to grab one of Chat Noir’s wrists. Her hiss of pain caused Chat Noir to pull away so fast he bumped against the wall at his back. Even withdrawn as far back as he could go, he still stood between Marinette’s parted knees in the tiny space. “Should I-?”

“Don’t stop,” Marinette cut him off. She brought his right hand up near her face, pink nail polish fingertips skimming along the edge of his gloves, pushing up. At the same time, she bit the claw protruding from its index finger in between her front teeth and tugged. She repeated this for each finger until the glove came loose, exposing a delicate hand. By the look on Chat Noir’s face, eyes blown out black, you would think Marinette opened the gates of heaven to him.

He pushed off the wall to dip into the curve of Marinette’s neck, which he graced with open-mouthed kisses. His hand (so much warmer and softer ungloved) slid down between them, straight to where Marinette’s pulse was pounding. Slick traces of his tongue against her skin, the steady and slow circle of his thumb over her underwear, his gloved hand still rubbing her breast, all had her legs twitching and her chest heaving. Marinette’s shaky exhales were the loudest sound in the confined space.

She propped her foot up on the wall behind him, her inner thigh shifting against his side, hypersensitive to the texture of it. With two fingers he pushed aside the thin lace between her legs, slid them underneath, where she was already soft and wet.

“Is this okay,” came a ragged whisper from beneath her ear, and the gentle pad of a thumb circled over her clit.

Marinette opened her mouth to speak, but a moan escaped first. “Y-yeah, yeah, like that,” she managed to gasp.

She tilted her head at the caress of his mouth as he kissed up her jawline and teased her earlobe with a gentle bite and flick of his tongue, his hand working steadily until Marinette was trembling against him.

The tension in her was mounting too fast. She slipped a hand to the back of his head and pulled their mouths together just before it snapped, a small, breathless cry muffled against his lips as her entire body shook in his arms.

 

* * *

 

 

Marinette descended from the second floor with shaky legs and a new, clean, black dress. As if she were waiting with one eye on the stairs, Alya ditched whichever conversation she was having and pounced on Marinette almost immediately.

“Marinette, you clean up so well! Did you use my NARS?” she commented with a sly wink, referring to the blush across Marinette’s face. “I was waiting for you to cut the cake, babe.”

Chat Noir lingered upstairs, killing time. Marinette asked him to try to sneak down unnoticed. She couldn’t handle the looks from Alya’s friends if they saw the two coming down together. Either he stayed up there a long time, or he took her plea far more seriously than expected. Marinette, on edge as she was, did not notice he had rejoined everyone until she and Alya had already distributed cake and curled up on the couch to have their slices. He was leaning against a wall, letting one of Alya’s cousins hold his baton and fanboy over it for a moment.

“Soooo,” Alya drawled playfully, following Marinette’s gaze. “Are you going to admit there’s another attractive dude in the world besides Adrien?”

Marinette forced her eyes down to the paper plate of cake in her lap. It was stupid to keep denying it at this stage. When in doubt, avoid the question. “I think we’re only going to be friends.”

“You and me are friends,” Alya said, heavy with implications. “And we both know you think I’m a babe.”

Marinette brushed that off with, “It’s not the same.” Even though… it might just be the same.

Alya clicked her tongue. “Just admit he’s a babe and he looks like he’s ripped under that suit. It’s my birthday, so admit it.”

Avoiding the urge to roll her eyes, Marinette stuffed a chunk of cake in her mouth instead to stall for time. Even without Alya’s help, she already kept replaying the sensations of their tryst upstairs, so fresh in her mind that she could almost still feel them.

“Obey the whims of the birthday girl,” Alya goaded.

“He’s a babe,” Marinette sighed, defeated. “Why are you pushing us together?”

“Because he’s a good guy, he’s checking you out, you need an ego boost after the Adrien thing,” Alya was lifting fingers up for each reason, “I can get good scoops for my blog all the time through you if it works out, and of course, less competition for Ladybug’s affections.”

Well.

Marinette shoveled more cake in her mouth.

It was already late in the night, and the amount of people was beginning to dwindle down. She appreciated that Chat Noir was keeping an inconspicuous distance. He looked like he was having a good time being the star of the party, but Marinette knew he had to be making a strong effort to pay attention to anyone other than her. Marinette and Alya danced to exhaustion, before sitting cross-legged on the abandoned Twister mat. A couple of her classmates joined and they got carried away in ridiculous conversations about the birthday girl.

When it was down to less than ten people in the room, Alya announced that she was officially sleepy. “I’m gonna shower and pass out, but anyone who wants to help clean up can stay as long as they want.”

Marinette didn’t blame them for politely declining. They trickled out after Alya disappeared into her room, leaving just one. Chat Noir had already started dutifully collecting plastic cups strewn about. For a couple of minutes, Marinette tidied up with him in silence, unsure if he was waiting for something.

“Sorry that, uh, I didn’t return the,” Marinette started, then paused because she did not actually feel sorry. She was left with an aching curiosity, though.

Before she could string a better thought together, Chat answered, “I wasn’t expecting one. I wasn’t even expecting to go that far with you, and I’m walking on clouds just from that.”

Marinette wanted to tell him to stop trying to be smooth, but the dopey smile on his face was too earnest. “You’re over the moon just from that?”

“Yeah,” he admitted casually. That’s why he was so uncharacteristically quiet. He was in a daze because Marinette let him touch her. Her confidence swelled.

“That’s… surprising. I was preparing a slew of excuses that wouldn’t make you feel bad, all for nothing.”

Chat laughed. “I feel so great it’s surreal.”

He was alarmingly candid about her effect on him, which Marinette was alarmingly fond of. She rewarded it with an honest confession of her own. “I wasn’t expecting it either. I haven’t actually done anything like this with a guy before.”

Chat Noir cocked his head, looking puzzled and more cat-like than ever. “Really? That was your first—?”

“No,” Marinette interrupted, talking as she loaded her arms with what little was left on the snack table. “I obviously knew what I was doing. I’ve done that, and some more.”

“But you said you haven’t?” he asked blankly. Then it sunk in. “Oh! Oh, okay. That was stupid of me.”

“Have you had a girlfriend, Chat?” Marinette pried. She always secretly wondered, but feared that asking as Ladybug would come off as a sign of interest and sabotage a potential girl’s relationship.

“No.” He held the fridge open for her as he turned the question on her, “Have you?”

“No. Only a very close friend,” she answered, realizing Chat Noir was also a close friend, and this might be the beginning of a pattern.

“My dad pressured me into some dates for strategic purposes, but they didn’t go anywhere. I was always waiting for someone else.”

His dad must be someone important. A reminder to Marinette that she didn’t know anything about Chat Noir, only that he adored her and waited his life for her and would die for her. “So was I.”

“We can’t wait forever,” he said with a closed smile, as she shut the fridge and brushed past him, back to the living room. “Who were you waiting for?”

“Nosy.” Marinette knelt down to fold up the Twister mat.

Chat Noir sprawled himself over it, rolling on his back to look up at her. “Come onnn, I’ll tell you my secret person too.”

Marinette barely held back a snort. “I know who yours is, it’s not secret to anyone in Paris.”

“Is it Adrien Agreste?”

“W-what? No! Why would I ever, I don’t even—” Marinette stammered.

Chat Noir frowned. “No? You have his poster in your room.”

“Alya gave that to me in high school! As a _joke_! It has _sentimental value_.”

Jesus. Marinette was lucky she had taken the rest of the pictures down when she had her walls redone, and hadn’t gotten around to putting them all back up. Mostly because she was too old for unattainable crushes like that. Or, at least, in the process of convincing herself she was.

“As a joke? That’s mean.”

Feeling tired, Marinette sank back onto the mat beside him. It had to be at least 4 AM. “Sometimes I'm mean.”

“Sometimes I like that,” he mumbled, half-lidded eyes confirming that he was crashing just as fast as her.

“Yeah? And what else?” Marinette teased, resting her head by his.

Chat Noir rolled onto his side, green eyes barely focusing on her. He hummed, thinking it over. “You’re exciting, and you like adventure. You’re not afraid. You care about people. You… go out of your way to make little girls safe. You’re kinda cocky—”

“Cocky?” Marinette interjected.

“Just a little, shush, me too.”

“You think it’s a good thing?” she asked through a yawn.

“Yeah, what do you think?”

Marinette thought that response didn’t make sense. But Chat Noir was speaking with eyes closed, so perhaps he wasn’t fully there.

“I think you have a type,” she said. It was her.

“I’m weak,” he agreed faintly. Marinette smiled at another nonsensical, exhausted reply.

She always dismissed his feelings toward Ladybug as idolization, or a heat of the moment rush. She didn’t expect him to feel exactly the same about Marinette, the human disaster who worked at a bakery and spilled wine over herself at parties.

It wasn't until something soft brushed against her shoulder, bringing her back to groggy consciousness, that Marinette realized she had dozed off. Blue eyes fluttered open to catch a glimpse of bare legs walking around her in the dark. Alya’s. A warm blanket had mysteriously appeared over her and Chat. Marinette attempted to mumble a thank you before she was pulled back into sleep.

Something beeped. Marinette ignored it.

It beeped again. Eyes closed, her eyebrows furrowed in annoyance.

Silence followed, and Marinette relaxed.

Then the beeping started up, repeating continually. With a groan, she reached for the source of the alarm. Instead of a cell phone, her hand closed around someone else’s.

She jolted awake. Harsh daylight beaming straight through open windows stung her tired eyes. The first thing she saw was Chat Noir’s face, only inches from hers. There was something smudged on it. The two were curled together beneath a red polka dot blanket, their arms and legs intertwined.

Chat Noir’s paw ring was chiming in rapid succession, flashing one toe bean. The idiot it was attached to was sleeping soundly through it. Marinette clutched his shoulders, shaking him roughly.

It was then that she focused on his face properly for the first time, just as he woke up so startled that he almost leapt in the air. There was black sharpie ink on it, drawn unmistakably in the shape of a big ass dick. Marinette’s mouth hung open, eyes wide. Chat Noir took no notice of her expression because he was looking at his ring in terror.

“I have to go right now,” he said, springing to his feet and rushing out.

“Chat, wait—!”

The door slammed shut. She heard a muffled “Sorry!” from the other side and boots rushing down the stairs.

Laughing to herself, Marinette got on her feet and stretched her aching shoulders. A Twister mat was not a proper substitute for a bed. Marinette had no idea their transformations had a time limit. In fact, she was pretty sure Tikki had told her they do not at some point, and she doubted Chat Noir would use Cataclysm in his sleep. She would have to ask Tikki about it when they got back home.

Walking past the kitchen, Marinette caught a glimpse of the time on the microwave. How was it past noon already? She had an afternoon class in a couple of hours. She hurried up to Alya’s room, searching for the casual clothes she had come in yesterday before they changed into their party attire. Marinette was in too much of a rush to be quiet about it, and heard Alya stirring awake just as she was wiggling into her jeans.

“Uh, hey,” Marinette said, zipping up her pants. “Did you put a dick on Chat Noir’s face?”

Alya laughed, her voice hoarse from sleep. “Haha, yeah.”

“Nice.”

She gathered up her belongings into her purse while Alya sat up in bed. “I was so drunk, whoops. But that’s what you get when you claim to be Ladybug’s number one fan in front of me.”

Marinette smiled, and leaned down to give her friend a hug goodbye. “You draw exquisitely even while wasted. We’ll talk later.”

Unshowered, half-awake, and hungry, Marinette trudged down seven flights of stairs. It was too early for this. It was afternoon, but it was too early for this. By the third flight of stairs, she knew a stop at the coffee shop at the corner of Alya’s block was imperative to her survival.

Just as she was about to enter the cafe, she spotted a familiar shade of blonde hair through the window, and stopped in her tracks. It was a person waiting for their coffee, with their back to her. He turned sideways, leaning on the counter, and his profile confirmed that it was someone she knew well. Adrien.

Marinette breathed a sigh of relief. She would still avoid going in to get coffee, because Adrien was not someone she was ready to handle in this state (or any state, actually), but for a moment she had been seized with a terrible suspicion that Chat Noir had the same idea as her after leaving Alya’s flat. Marinette didn't usually worry that any blond in the area was Chat Noir, except there was certainly only one guy walking these streets with a dick on his face today.

She watched Adrien pick up his coffee, and quickly snuck off to the side, pulling her hoodie up and faking interest in the window display of the bakery next door. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched him exit the cafe. Before going in herself, she couldn’t help sneaking one last pathetic, yearning look at him waiting at the crosswalk. He looked more disheveled than she had ever seen him, and his face had a huge… Oh, no.

She knew that dick.


	8. Chapter 8

Adrien rolled his head from side to side, wincing softly at the pain burning in his neck and between his shoulders. It didn’t make him feel any better. When his head faced forward again, the guy across from him quickly turned his head to fix a determined stare on the doors at the other side of the train. This triggered a swift awareness that many people on the train were staring at him. It was a bit uncomfortable, although Adrien was accustomed to being recognized enough for it not to bother him. It was mostly an inconvenience, because the only thing he wanted to do at the moment was have a whispered conversation with Plagg about _why the hell his transformation broke_ , and there was no discreet way to do it with several pairs of eyes on him. He turned in his seat to crack his back and met eyes with the teenager sitting beside him. He smiled politely, and she burst into a fit of flustered giggles. Typical.

When Adrien made it to his room, Plagg didn’t waste a second. The little jerk zipped out, straight for the mini fridge where his snacks were kept. Adrien chased after him and snatched his tail, halting Plagg in mid-air before the kwami made it into the fridge.

“Animal cruelty!” cried Plagg.

“What was that all about?”

“I’m starving!” he yowled.

Adrien pinched his tail tighter and reached into the fridge with his free hand. “Explain first and you get the whole thing.”

Plagg’s tongue lapped noisily at the sight of Adrien withdrawing a wheel of cheese the size of his entire hand. “Alright, I was bored and hungry to the point of madness! And _you_ were committing a flagrant misuse of the miraculous, someone had to end it.”

Adrien clicked his tongue. “Since when do you care about using it responsibly?”

“Since you took _fourteen hours_ to fool around,” Plagg whined, reaching desperately for the cheese.

Was it really that long? “I didn’t mean to, I… fell asleep.”

“I didn’t! Gimme that!”

Adrien released Plagg, letting him snatch the cheese out of his hand and start chomping away. “You can’t just do that when you get impatient. What if she saw me?”

It took Plagg a long moment of sloppy chewing before he replied. “Isn’t that what you wanted?” he said through a full mouth.

Adrien didn’t answer. Of course he wanted it. He wanted to try having something real with Marinette. It was fun to play dark and mysterious for now, but that masquerade couldn’t be sustainable. A skype ringtone went off and Nino’s face plastered his computer screens, which saved Adrien from thinking of a response for Plagg. He plopped into his computer chair and accepted the call. It opened up the familiar sight of Nino’s sleepy face and messy dorm room. Adrien knew it was early for him because they had done this a few times, enough to remember which days Nino had 8 AM classes. Nino wasn’t a morning person, so having someone to talk with helped him get up and stay awake.

“Hey,” Adrien said in English, and somehow Nino found it hilarious. He laughed really loudly. For at least ten seconds.

“What up, dickface,” he finally responded when the laughs subsided.

“What…?” Adrien gave an icy look. “I don’t like what LA’s doing to you.”

“Am I not supposed to acknowledge the dick on your face? Who did that?”

“What are you talking—Oh, god,” Adrien’s eyes darted to the bottom corner of the call, where he could see himself. An enormous black marker dick stretched from the edge of his jaw to the tip of his cheekbone. Adrien’s mouth fell open in silent terror. The movement only seemed to lengthen the dick. 

Nino started to crack up again. “You didn’t notice?”

“ _I took the metro!_ ” Adrien was only one notch away from hysterics.

Nino laughed so hard and so sudden that it sounded like a shriek. While Adrien rubbed aggressively at his face, a loud series of bangs made both of them jump. “My roommate,” Nino whispered, stifling his laughter. “Who were you with that’s this brutal, man?”

“A—” Adrien paused, remembering that Alya keeps up with everyone. It would be a disaster if Nino told her he had a dick on his face after her party, which she didn’t see Adrien at. “ _Ah_ , I was at a… thing. Like, an after party. Everyone went out together after a photoshoot and it ran late. Oh no, everyone was staring at me on the train. A girl laughed in my face and I thought I’d made her nervous.”

Nino shook silently. He might have been crying, but the connection was too pixelated for Adrien to be sure. Adrien dragged an open palm down his face, completely mortified. “Look, I gotta get it off. I’ll talk to you later.”

“D’you think you’re good at getting dicks off?” Nino snickered.

“BYE.”

Adrien cut the call and whirled in his seat. “Plagg! What the hell!”

The kwami was on the floor, flopped on his back, shoving the final chunk of camembert down his throat. “Mmh?”

“Why did you leave this on after the transformation?”

Plagg smacked his lips, savoring the last bits of cheese. “Leave what? Does your face not always look like that?”

Adrien glared. “I’m going to kick you.”

“Please don’t,” Plagg pleaded. “I’m too full to run away.”

 

* * *

 

A week passed without speaking to Marinette. He ached to call her or message her, but she wasn’t on that level with Adrien. When he saw something funny online, he’d get the urge to send it to her before remembering she doesn’t have that relationship with him (and send it to Nino instead). A couple of times he woke up from a dream about her, glowing and ecstatic, before reality sank in and the warmth in his chest faded to hollow longing.

He started going to school more often, even when he didn’t have time for it. They didn’t share classes, but they crossed paths in the hall sometimes. Marinette didn’t even meet his eyes. When they were younger, he was certain she had a crush on him. Either it died out slowly, or the awkward date with him was the killing blow. She outright avoided Adrien now. He knew this because he stopped by her bakery at a strategic time to pretend he needed bread. The moment she saw Adrien, Marinette ducked into the pantry room and stayed there until he left.

He tried, unsuccessfully, not to be hurt. At night he would stare up at his ceiling and pick himself apart, attempting to decipher which parts were the ones repelling Marinette. It was stupid and damaging, because Adrien couldn’t change who he was. Chat Noir and Adrien Agreste were the same person. If Marinette was only interested in one of them, then…

He was still figuring out what it meant for them. Logic told him it meant they’re incompatible and it could never work. Adrien pretended he didn’t hear that thought when it occurred to him. He stared up at the ceiling some more. It kept coming back. He sat up in bed, unable to go on without knowing.

Fifteen minutes later, he was tapping Marinette’s window. And waiting. Her lights were on, but if she was in there, it was out of the window’s range of view. He rapped his knuckles against the glass again. He chewed his lip as minutes passed. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. It was pretty weird to show up to a girl’s house uninvited. He turned away, embarrassed by himself.

He crouched at the window’s ledge, preparing to leap down, when something clicked quietly. Behind him, Marinette was pushing one side of her window open. She hesitated for a long moment before saying, “You’re here.”

Chat Noir stared blankly for another long moment before saying, “That sure is a fact?”

A hush floated between them as his joke fell flat. He crept back to her window sill, waiting for her to tell him to come in or go away. Blue eyes bored into him without a word, even as the draft from outside raised goosebumps over her arms. Since when did they have awkward silences?

“Can we talk?” he asked before the series of uncomfortable moments could stretch any longer.

Marinette nodded, letting him slink over the sill and into the warmth of her room. Her arms were crossed over her waist, both hands clutching her elbows. She was in her pajamas, pink sweatpants hanging loosely from her hips and a thin white shirt that he valiantly pretended he couldn’t see the outline of her nipples through.

“Alya drew a dick on my face,” he blurted, diligently keeping his eyes on her face.

He hoped it would make her laugh, or she would have a quip to make them both laugh. All he got was a dry, “I know.”

The tension between them wasn’t something exciting, but an abrasive uncertainty. A strain between their communication that reminded him of her failed date with Adrien. A key difference this time was that with a mask came the boldness to question it. “Why are you being so weird?”

“I’m not—” Marinette started.

“You _are_.”

“You’re waiting outside my window in the dark, you lost any rights to call me weird,” she bit back defensively, and Chat Noir grinned. Marinette winced at herself and apologized to him.

The smile slipped. Since when had she ever feel remorse for putting him in place? She was treating him like a stranger. Marinette wouldn’t stop staring him up and down, eyes bouncing between his face and his body over and over without subtlety. Normally this would boost his ego, but the uneasy expression on her face was not the kind of look one wears while checking you out.

He took a step toward her. “What is it? You’re acting so different.”

Her eyes weren’t quite meeting his, but looking slightly lower. He could see them sweeping from side to side, examining his face. “So are you,” she muttered, almost to herself.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Her eyes snapped up to hold his, suddenly alight with intensity. “You’ve been so stupid.”

Chat Noir opened his mouth to repeat the question, but her hands came to his chest and her eyes were locked on his. Maybe he was reading too much into it, maybe he was seeing what he wanted to see, but there was enough longing to mirror his own pouring out from her gaze and the way her palms slid over his suit as she drew closer. She came up on her toes and he bowed his head to meet hers. As delicate and slow as their approach, the kiss was nothing more than a soft skim over her lips and a tiny retreat.

Chaste as it was, his heart thrummed. It was so different from any kiss with her before, not impulsive or lust-driven. Her arms wrapped around his neck to pull him into an embrace, another tender kiss brushing soft as a rose petal against the corner of his mouth. Her mouth wandered, unhurried, along the curve of his jaw. He obliged her explorations, letting his head fall back when her lips found the sweet spot in between his neck and jawbone. A sigh slightly more vocal than the ones before gave him away, and Marinette didn’t hesitate to push that button again. She sucked, and he struggled to suppress a groan. He clutched her waist while his fingers clenched and unclenched, their claws harmless outside the fabric of her shirt. “Marinette…”

A soft sound somewhere between a hum and a moan answered him. “I wanted to hear that for so long.”

“Marinette?” he tried again, vaguely wondering if this was really the first time he said her name in this context. His mind was in no place to fact-check this because she whispered, “Come up,” before pulling away and brushing past him. She flicked the lights off before climbing up the steps to her bed. _Up to her bed._

Marinette sank back into the familiar plush sheets where she’d spent many of her adolescent nights visualizing artfully tousled blonde hair and smoldering green eyes above her. The shining, skintight armor was left out of her fantasies, but she was surprisingly open to it now that it was in her reality.

Like teenagers, they got swept away with just kissing for far longer than necessary. She was enraptured enough with tangling her fingers in his hair, arching her chest against his, sliding her knee up the side of his thigh. She tried not to think about how hard her heart was pumping, sent into overdrive by her feelings for Chat Noir and Adrien Agreste fusing into one intense jumble of confusion. It was an uncomfortable mess full of doubt and desire that made her want to run from him and clutch him to her at the same time.

It was much more comfortable to think about how much she wanted this for how long, and that the gloved hand sliding up her t-shirt to rub her breast was surely a karmic reward from the universe for being a good person. She shivered, her nipple hard and sensitive beneath the cool, slick material of his glove. “Take that off.”

Her clothes accumulated at the floor of her bedside while Chat Noir rose to his knees to tug off his glove. Beneath the glow of the skylight, her nude body was illuminated pale blue when he saw it for the first time. “God, you’re beautiful,” he said, his voice low and somewhat tremulous.

Knowing who he was behind the mask and how sincerely he meant it ignited a spark of pure desire in between her legs that slid up her spine, radiating out through every nerve in her body. “Please,” she breathed, shifting her knees apart.

“What,” he whispered, and trailed his bare fingertips up her thigh.

“Please, I. I need—” she swallowed her words in a ragged gasp when he pushed two fingers in exactly where she needed, “ _that_ , fuck.”

Green eyes stayed transfixed on the way her body twitched beneath him, something he didn’t have the chance to experience the first time they did this. He remembered the tricks she liked most from that time, how hard she liked to be pumped, which rhythm of his thumb over her clit made her moan out loud. She was so wet, gushing over his palm, clenching her eyes shut, grasping both sides of the pillow beneath her head desperately, ready to come apart beneath his touch.

“Marinette,” he said, voice soft and coaxing, “Look at me.”

It took more effort than expected for her to pry her eyelids apart in the heat of the moment. She felt Chat Noir’s knees slipping backwards and apart over her sheets while he gave her a smile that he probably meant to be mischievous, but even with the mask on it came out so dreamy and worthy of a GQ cover that she was momentarily blinded. She almost missed him sinking to his elbows and, oh god, lowering his head.

Soft and wet and impossibly pleasurable, the flat of his tongue licked slowly, experimentally up her clit. She had to fling her wrist over her mouth to muffle a moan. Enveloped by the heat of his mouth, fuck,  _Adrien’s mouth_ , his gorgeous, perfect mouth, Marinette had to fight off the impulse to come right then. No, it had to last longer.

Whimpering with nearly every exhale, a constant struggle to stay quiet while every sensation was screaming underneath her skin, Marinette took one of Chat’s hands and guided his fingers into her mouth. He looked up, the movements of his tongue becoming sloppy and distracted while he watched her lips close around them, the way her cheeks hollowed. She licked at his fingers, biting down when he moaned and the vibrations of it sent thrills throughout her entire pelvis. A cry escaped her before she was aware she was making a sound, and Chat Noir’s wrist deftly pivoted to stifle it with its palm, pushing her head back into the pillow. But she couldn’t stop. Even with his palm clasped tight over her mouth, unrestrained sobs of pleasure heaved through her nose.

Between her trembling thighs, bright green eyes watched feverishly as she came undone. His tongue continued to trace soft patterns over the hypersensitive skin until she was done coming on his face, which she signaled by rolling to her side. He sat up on his knees, lips glossy with his saliva and her wetness. While Marinette twitched with small aftershocks, he gave his lips one last, slow lick and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. It brought Marinette’s awareness to her own spit smeared over her cheeks. She rubbed it away with her palm as Chat Noir crawled up to lay beside her, probably expectantly. It was alright, she was prepared to fuck him senseless. He earned it.

“Can I ask you something?” he said quietly, and her nose brushed against his when she turned to show him she’s listening. “What are we?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Absolutely not.

She waited for him to smirk, reveal that his sense of humor upgraded from puns. No. The look on his face was heart wrenchingly sincere. Marinette did not need a wrench thrown into the mechanics of her heart. The feelings she had avoided at the start of this resurfaced. The unsorted mess of her obsessive crush on Adrien, her undying friendship with Chat Noir, and whatever ambiguous pieces of both had been jammed together in a Chinese finger trap of double identities.

Chat Noir sat up, waiting on her, looking so vulnerable and exposed. A ridiculous feat to achieve considering Marinette was literally naked here. “Marinette, I—” he started.

“I can’t do this,” she said, at once. Her eyebrows furrowed, as if she were the one surprised by this. Chat raised his upturned palms toward her, a silent plea for clarification.

“It—It’s too much, Chat. We weren’t supposed to know this much. I told you this, _I told you_ ,” Marinette kept her voice low, but her tone was only a few decibels down from raving at him now that the afterglow had been swiftly annihilated. “We can’t pretend to be normal when nothing about us is! It’s too risky—You know where I live, you met my friends, I—”

“Because you invited me, both times,” Chat Noir reminded her.

“That was before I—we—things—changed. So fast.”

“For the better, right?”

Marinette shut her eyes. “Chat, quit it.”

“No. I know you don’t want to take me seriously because you think I just like to chase, but I really missed you. Every day since the last time we—”

Chat’s hand grazed over Marinette’s, and her eyes snapped open. “Please stop. I’ve been so stupid and I can’t take hearing these things in your voice right now.”

It hurt to hear this from Adrien's voice because she loved him from a distance for so long. And Chat Noir's voice, possibly more painful to have this conversation with because she loved him closely, as a friend, for just as long. Somehow these feelings cancelled each other out and she feared whoever both of them were.

“But I need to say them now because you’re acting like it’s been a huge mistake,” he practically begged.

“No, just. It’s something that’s not working. You can’t be with someone who lives a double life.”

“But that’s the only relationship I _can_ have.”

 _Me too_ , she wanted to say. The moonlight shining on her from above painted Marinette ice blue. “It’s not how relationships work.”

The thought he came here to avoid came right back to him, through Marinette’s mouth. _It could never work._

Chat Noir took her chin in one hand, his grip commanding. He pushed his lips firmly against her, falling back on terrible romance movie clichés. His favorite defense mechanism. She  _knew_ this boy. It’s just like him to put on a cheeky confidence that he didn’t actually feel.

Transparent as his charade was, every slide of his warm lips against hers sent a wave of need crashing over her body that made it difficult not to arch up against him. She had thought she wasted so many years hung up on Adrien, and it was so difficult to pull back now that they were kneeling on her bed and she was making his heart pump so passionately that, with the hand sliding up his chest, she could feel it beating through his suit. His slick black armor pressed against her bare breasts when he leaned into the kiss. The friction of it dragging against her nipples sparked an unexpected exhilaration that gave her the urge to throw her head back and moan. She suppressed this urge into a sharp inhale instead. He caught on anyway. She could feel the smug way his lips curled on hers and knew it was no coincidence that he leaned closer.

Marinette wrenched away, holding him by the hair to keep him from chasing her lips. “What are you doing?” she demanded through heavy breaths.

She’d been right about his smirk. So god damn smug about it. “Are you sure that wasn’t working for you? Because—”

“The problem isn’t that I’m not attracted to you!”

Chat Noir’s face scrunched up into a wince and it took Marinette a second to realize it wasn’t his feelings that hurt, but her grip at the root of his hair that had subconsciously tightened in her frustration. She let go, giving it an apologetic pat that turned out much more like a caress than she intended.

“What is it then?” he asked, fixing his hair in a way that was so Adrien.

Every glimpse of Adrien in Chat Noir made her judgment cloudy. _Take advantage of him,_ the clouds spelled out in skywriting, _You deserve it and he would love it anyway._ She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, exasperated by the effect her old crush still had on her.

“It’s… You. This,” Marinette stumbled over her own thoughts, shaking off the questionable impulses. “It’s like a dream now, but this isn’t… real. It’s leading nowhere and one of us has to say stop. Clearly, it’s not going to be you.”

His face fell, and she couldn’t believe he was doing the model pout at a time like this. She’d never seen it in person, but she knew that pout like the back of her hand. “Okay, so. Let’s be just friends then. The normal kind, not the Alya kind.”

“Please.” Of course they would still be friends. They’d be alongside each other until the day they died. He just wouldn’t know it. “We’re not going to be friends.”

She watched the stark shadow of his Adam’s apple slide as he swallowed down his pride. He looked up, blinking quietly at her ceiling for a moment. He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came. Instead, he quietly reached up to unlatch the skylight and push it open.

The silence prickled Marinette’s skin. She pulled her sheets up over her chest and took Chat’s hand. “I’m sorry.”

He looked down at her, his other hand gripping the edge of the window.  “If you change your mind, I’ll be waiting.”

“I don’t think you should.”

Chat Noir pulled her hand up to place a kiss goodbye on the back of her palm. “I’m stubborn like that.”

With a familiar wink, he pulled himself up and out. Bright green eyes looked at her one last time through the closed glass above. Not the last time, she reminded her dramatic self after he disappeared. Ladybug would always have her hands full with him. It was more important to preserve her relationship with him than Marinette's.


	9. Chapter 9

She worried he would come back, unannounced, like he did that night. He never did, but Marinette still worried about it.

Each evening, she worried she would hear another tap at her window. Sometimes she woke up in the middle of the night, worried that she would open her eyes and find glowing green ones staring down at her through the skylight.

It took two weeks of this before Tikki took pity on Marinette and pointed out that she had misidentified the feeling. It wasn’t worry. It was hope.

“You miss him,” Tikki said.

“No, I don’t.”

Tikki tilted her head. “Why not?”

“Because that’s silly. I see him, like, twice a month. Or more if Papillon is feeling especially motivated.”

It used to seem like she saw him a lot, but she felt estranged now that she had grown accustomed to spending time with him outside of strictly emergency situations. Marinette didn’t admit this to Tikki. She couldn’t admit that it was too much of a struggle to separate Adrien from Chat Noir. It threw a wrench in their dynamics that she hadn’t been expecting and didn’t know how to fix. She was used to being comfortable around Chat Noir and dysfunctional in front of Adrien. Where did that leave her now that they were increasingly difficult to tell apart? She was afraid to admit to herself that she shouldn’t be trying to separate them in the first place.

She called Alya to distract herself from accepting the possibility that she missed him. When her friend answered, the first thing Marinette heard was a series of distant screams. “Can’t talk right now!”

“Where are you?”

“Waiting for Ladybug at Le Trianon!” Alya shouted over the chaos. “One of the Nouvelle Star singers totally lost it after she got booed off and started—”

The call lost service. Marinette rushed to redial, but Alya’s photo was still lighting up her screen. They were still connected, although Marinette could hear nothing.

Wait. She pressed the phone closer to her ear. A shuffling. The sounds of hurried footsteps. “Hello? Are you there?”

The sound of Alya breaking into a full run on hard floors, panicked breathing directly into the cellphone. “Alya, what’s happening? Are you okay?”

Only a desperate breath came in response. Marinette’s phone hit the ground.

When Ladybug burst through the front doors of the theater, she was thrown off by the emptiness. Over the phone, she’d heard a crowd screaming before it went strangely quiet. The hush at the entrance suggested they were gone, but the street outside the theater had been empty too. If they evacuated, surely groups of people would still be scattered along the sidewalk.

Ladybug crept through the doors that lead to the orchestra seats. The venue was an old theater that had been adjusted to hold modern concerts. The sweeping, grandiose ceiling was something straight out of the Belle Époque, anachronistic in contrast to the metallic rigging framing the stage. Beneath the lights, two figures clashed. One was Chat Noir, the other was a wild-haired woman in a glittering sequin dress.

Ladybug darted to the nearest aisle and sprinted down its carpeted floor lined with lights. She skidded to a halt when she became aware that the theater was not empty at all. Far from it. Nearly every seat was full.

“Show’s over, everyone get out of here!” she commanded, making an effort to project her voice.

It was best to get as many people away from combat before she got involved, but not one person moved. They stared ahead at the struggle onstage.

Ladybug crouched down beside the nearest audience member and shook his shoulder. “Can you hear me?”

He tilted his head just an inch to look at her, but said nothing before returning his attention to the stage. They were under some sort of spell. Hopefully Chat Noir could brief her on it. In the moments Ladybug had been distracted, the akuma victim leashed the cord of her golden microphone around his neck. She was looking at Ladybug now, and brought the microphone up to her mouth to address her, using one hand to hold the cord steady while Chat choked at the other end.

“ _Welcome to Enchanteuse’s show_ ,” she sang, teasingly. “ _Bring Ladybug to me, let's go!_ ”

Chat Noir threw his arm over the outstretched cord and sank to his knees with all his force, tugging the microphone out of her hands. It hit the floor with a crash that resonated from every speaker, sending a flinch through the audience.

All around her, every single person in the seats of the theater stood up. That couldn't be good. Ladybug dashed toward the stage, but didn’t make it before the civilians at the aisles of the first couple of rows closed her off. She had no choice but to kick down a teenager and vault over an older woman’s shoulders while repeating, “ _I’m sorry, I’m sorry!_ ” It would have been much worse to beat up an entire mob of civilians, right?

She leapt onstage just as Chat Noir wriggled free of the black cords around him. Ladybug helped him to his feet and wrapped an arm around his waist, then swung them up to the rafters before he had a chance to say anything. She held him by the elbows to steady herself, because balancing on the steel beams which held the lights pointing down at the stage felt like standing on train tracks, except they were 50 feet up in the air with a mob of people screaming for Ladybug beneath.

“ _Don’t shout for her_ ,” Enchanteuse sang. Immediately, the crowd went silent.

“You should have broken the microphone while you had it,” Ladybug chided gently. “It’s clearly where the akuma is.”

She was so used to his sass that when he didn’t snap anything back in his defense, she lost her bearings for a moment. Like walking up stairs and missing a step. “Are you okay?”

He shook his head.

She furrowed her brows.

 _Who hurt you?_ she wanted to ask. _Oh, I did,_ she unwillingly answered.

“ _Both of you,_ ” Enchantesue’s melody blasted from the speakers on either side of them. “ _Get do—_ ”

Chat Noir ducked and scraped his claws along the rigging they stood on. Ladybug instinctually clapped her hands over her ears in reaction to the shriek of his nails against steel. When he pulled away, Chat Noir gave Ladybug a wide-eyed look of panic before jumping down to the stage.

“What are you doing?” she called after him.

“ _Let me take your miraculous, Chat Noir. I must have it to keep my new pouvoir,_ ” the singer crooned when he landed at her feet.

Enchanteuse advanced on him and Chat Noir didn’t move. He couldn’t disobey. That’s what it was.

“Lucky charm!”

A black and red microphone fell into Ladybug’s outstretched hand.

“Don’t touch him,” she demanded into it, stalling for time while she figured out what the hell to do with the mic. The sound of her voice boomed out of the speaker system, pulling everyone’s attention up to the rafters.

Enchanteuse tilted her head straight up to narrow her smokey black eyes at Ladybug. “ _You’re next, Ladybug._ ”

Out of the corner of her eye, Ladybug saw Chat Noir darting backstage while the akuma victim’s eyes were on her. Enchanteuse was going to force her to follow an order if she didn’t do something. She thought of Chat Noir scratching against metal to protect her, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to cover his own ears. Enchanteuse parted her blood red lips to sing, and Ladybug knew what she had to do. She ran to the nearest speaker and held the open mic up against it. The screech of the audio feedback it created made Ladybug cringe, but also drowned out whatever Enchanteuse was saying. Even better, it made the singer clench her eyes shut and cover her ears.

Ladybug took advantage of the moment to use her yoyo to descend down to the backstage area. It was dimly lit and crowded with equipment and stage props. “Chat Noir?”

A hand grabbed her wrist in the darkness, pulling her to a crouch behind an accompaniment piano. Chat’s eyes were bright in the darkness and he still had nothing to say.

“Did she command you not to speak?” Ladybug wondered out loud.

He nodded ruefully.

“Ah, of course. I don’t blame her, but for a moment I was scared you weren’t talking to me.”

He put a hand on one of her shoulders and gave it a comforting squeeze.

“I know what to do. We go back to the rafters, where the speakers are, and you use cataclysm when—”

She cut herself off when he shook his head. With an open palm, he gestured to his throat area.

“Uh?” She squinted at him.

 _Cataclysm_ , he mouthed.

“Oh, you can’t use it without a voice. Damn. Okay. I guess body language will have to do until we sort this out,” she muttered.

With a quiet snort, he winked. The last time she saw that familiar wink was moments after breaking his heart. Her chest ached at the memory.

“I’ve missed you,” she thought to herself, though it came out as whisper.

Chat Noir blinked in surprise. Then he pulled her into a soft hug. She rested her chin on his shoulder and spoke low into his ear again, “I wanted to keep you at arms length because—I don’t know how to be honest anymore. I don’t have any relationship without secrets.”

He pulled back slightly, just enough to bore a questioning stare into her eyes. Ladybug cupped his face in both of her hands and pressed her lips against his. Her thumbs brushed over his cheekbones as an apology poured out from her lips in the form of a passionate kiss.

But this was nothing like the pliant, heated kisses Marinette knew. He was wooden and unresponsive against her. Chat Noir’s hands slid down her shoulders to clutch her arms and hold them firmly as he pulled away. She chased his mouth, but he held her back. They paused like this, taking a moment for the cold realization of what he’d done to stab through both of them.

Chat Noir’s eyes fixated on his grasp around her arms. He shook his head at Ladybug, unable to look her in the eye. He slid his hands down to hers and took the microphone. With his free hand, he gave hers one last squeeze before standing up.

“ _There you are_ ,” came Enchanteuse’s sing-song voice, immediately.

Ladybug, still crouched behind the piano, could not see her. She could only hear the clack of the victim’s stilettos coming closer to Chat Noir, who stood still to let her take his miraculous as she had commanded. When they were face to face, she reached for his ring hand and sang, “ _Tell me where Ladyb—_ ”

Chat Noir pushed the red and black microphone up to her gold and black one, creating a shrill feedback loop that drowned out her voice. The moment Enchanteuse recoiled from the grating cacophony, Ladybug crawled toward the microphone cord and tugged it out of her hands. She broke it open and purified the akuma within.

“Bye bye, petit papillon,” she said half-heartedly, more focused on Chat Noir attempting to quietly exit the scene without so much as a fist bump.

The tungsten lights of the front stage glared burning orange directly behind him, making Chat Noir a silhouette in Ladybug’s eyes as she told him to wait. He spun halfway and, somehow, she could still see the glow of his eyes when he looked toward her.

“I have to say something,” she said, stepping into the stage. Closer now, she could see all the details of him cast in golden hues.

Silently, his fingers picked at the hem of his glove while he chewed his bottom lip. For a moment she wondered if the silencing enchantment hadn't worn off yet, until he finally said, “I think it’s too late now.”

“Not for this,” she promised. “Spots off.”

His mouth fell open at the words and he watched her transformation come off in wonder. Her mask was the last piece to go, and somehow Marinette felt more exposed under his stare now than she did when she was completely nude. His eyes darted back and forth across her face in disbelief, as if trying to convince himself he wasn’t dreaming. She knew the feeling.

“I lied when I said we can’t be friends,” she said, to break the silence. “I just. I don’t want to be two people. Not with you.”

“I. We. I just. Hold on,” he tripped over his words for a moment, struggling to put pieces together. “You said people like me—Us?—aren’t meant for relationships.”

His fingers were still fidgeting with the rim of his glove. She took a step closer, pulled his hand into hers. “Yeah, I’m people like you. And maybe I don’t always have the right answer. Like, maybe only 95% of the percent of the time.”

He exhaled a soft laugh that was equal parts nervous and relieved. “So it might work?”

She wanted the answer to be yes, but the truth was that Marinette was frighteningly unsure of where this could lead. “We’ll see.”

In front of a thousand empty seats of the cleared out theater and beneath the warmth of stage lights shining bright upon them, their two silhouettes drew closer until they were one shadow on the stage. Even with the notes of uncertainty between them, their mouths slid together into an easy rhythm, one they already knew.

Chat Noir was the first to break it, to pull back and say, “I have to tell you who I am Marinette. I actually—”

“I know, Adrien.”

“You—You already knew? How did you figure me out?”

“I saw Alya’s dick on your face,” she whispered lovingly, as she pulled his head down to meet hers and red velvet stage curtains drew to a close.


End file.
